


little blue pills to help me sleep (don't like my life so I take seven when i drink)

by cashtastrophe



Series: goddamn, we missed the vein [2]
Category: Underfell - Fandom, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underfell, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Ecto-Genitalia (Undertale), Fellcest - Freeform, Finally, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masochism, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Partial dismemberment, Porn, Public Sex, Sans Needs A Hug, disproportionate ratio of hurt to comfort, eventually, gross violence, honeymustard - Freeform, kind of, literal trash, papyrus wears dresses, sin - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:33:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 60,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashtastrophe/pseuds/cashtastrophe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>sans wakes up in a dumpster.</p><p>This...is not as uncommon as it actually should be.</p><p>(finally w/ actual honeymustard and unrelated: i am sorry)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [little blue pills to help me sleep (don't like my life so I take seven when i drink)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8949286) by [a_c](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_c/pseuds/a_c)



> i dunno, man, i had a little bit of a hankering for sad skel having a Less Bad time? 
> 
> hopefully this makes up a tad for what i've done to him in [life's a game, life's a joke--fuck it, why not go for broke?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6232009)
> 
>  
> 
> as always, your feedback is my lifeblood, and english ain't my first language, so please point out any mistakes--if they bug you, they'd bug me too.
> 
> (see end notes for trigger warnings)

Sans wakes up in a dumpster.  
  
This...is not as uncommon as it actually should be. He recognizes this one, which is something, at least—rusted green metal, filled with meticulously-tied garbage bags and a surprisingly small number of flies. Of all the dumpsters to wind up in, he could have done worse than Grillby's, probably. It doesn't even smell all that bad. He's a little impressed, considering.  
  
He rubs blearily at his eye sockets with one hand and does a quick mental tally, pats down his pockets. He comes up with keys, phone, and wallet and—eighteen missed calls. All from Papyrus. All within the span of an hour.  
  
The phone's time reads: 7 am.  
  
_Shit._  
  
He needs to go, he needs to be home, like, twelve hours ago. He'd only meant to stop in at Grillby's to pick up dinner after his shift—same burger and fries every day, same panicky rush to scarf it down within the ten-minute walk home, just in case it doesn't turn out to be one of Pap's good days, same crooked smirk from the bartender as his voice crackled like damp logs in a fireplace, ".......put it on your tab again, sans?" like he doesn't know sans has never been allowed to carry gold in his life. He'd even refused the three fingers of bourbon Grillby had waiting for him, so how had he...?  
  
It doesn't really matter right now, though, and all he's doing is wasting precious time that he could be using to drag his sorry ass back home to start breakfast hopefully before Pap made it back from his morning run. He can sort through his muddled recollections later.  
  
He squints his aching eyes up at where the lid should be, thanking his stars that Grillby had left it open last night.  
  
He tries not to focus too much on how out of character that is for the meticulous bartender. Tries not to think about the vague panicky nausea in the pit of his belly, same kind he gets every time he drinks enough to black out, every time he knows there was a chunk of the night before he wasn't even conscious of. Instead, he lurches up open-clawed for the edge of the dumpster, scrabbling desperately to get a purchase firm enough to vault himself to his feet. He manages to hook his claws into the lip just enough to pull himself unsteadily up, and then—  
  
And then.  
  
And then his right leg just drops offline _completely_ , replaced by a sucking maelstrom of pain, buzzing agony like a goddamn chainsaw's been laid right up against his femur. Sans lets out this strangled gasp like the breath's been punched out of him, rattling in lungs he doesn't have as it claws up his hip.  
  
His good leg buckles under his weight and he goes down hard against the side of the dumpster with a resounding _thud_ of bone on bone on metal and a loud "mother _fuck_!"  
  
He manages—barely, hazily, his vision is pulsing in time with his frantic heartbeat—to twist around enough to look at the offending limb and he regrets it immediately.  
  
His tibia just... _ends_ about six inches below the knee, snapped neatly in two. His foot is facing backwards, twisted around on a fractured fibula, only the panicky ebb of his magic truly keeping it attached. His entire lower leg is slick with rust-colored blood, the bone already flaking away into fine dust.  
  
"ohhhhhhhh fuck," he moans through his teeth, unwitting tears prickling at his eyelights. "no, no, oh come on, what the _fuck_."  
  
He can barely string together a coherent thought past the pain but he knows he needs to call Papyrus, needs to beg his brother to come rescue him and quickly, before someone else happens along an easy target, trapped, helpless and completely unable to flee.  
  
With shaking claws, he punches 1 on speed dial. He huffs out a low breath and closes his eyes when the tinny jangling of the ringback begins.  
  
He's fully expecting Pap to yell. He's expecting Pap to be furious. He's expecting that he'll be answering later for whatever drunken stunt landed him here in the first place.  
  
He's...also expecting Papyrus to answer his phone.  
  
Huh.  
  
What he is _not_ expecting is a set of five wide, wet black eyes blinking down at him and a sweet voice murmuring "oh, oh dear—hang on, I'll get you out of there, oh your poor _leg_ —”  
  
And her hands are so gentle on his arms as she picks him up, all six of them, but he makes a low, terrified wailing kind of sound anyways, thrashes in her grip only briefly before the pain paralyzes him once more.  
  
She's touching him, why is she _touching him_ , why does she have enough strength in that tiny body to hold him still and more importantly why does she keep telling him he's okay, he's _safe, Sans, just breathe for me, that's it_ because nothing is okay. Nothing is _safe_.  
  
He knows an order when he hears one, though, so he grits his mangled teeth and tries to force his ragged breath into something approaching a normal pattern. The woman—spider-woman, he amends as the te rrified haze clears somewhat—reaches one small hand up to gently stroke the back of his skull and he shivers.  
  
Does...that mean he's doing it right? He still feels like he's choking, still feels like something might have crawled into his throat and died there, but her cool fingers are tracing an old crack like it's somehow not abhorrent to touch him and that—  
  
He doesn't know what to do with that, so he does nothing. Focuses on the shrill agony still chewing its way through his shinbone instead of the worried slant of her eyes, the soft "How'd you manage _this,_ then?"  
  
He doesn't answer. Does she know him? that sounds like she does, huh, and he thinks even his shit memory would have a hard time deleting a giant goddamn spider in a frilly lavender party dress. Her mouth draws into a tight line around her sharp little fangs, and she sighs deeply.  
  
“Sans...?” She doesn't sound so sure anymore, two free hands coming up to frame his face on either side, tipping his skull up for her to get a better look. Her thumb skims the razor point of his gold tooth, hand jerking sharply back against her chest when the thing slices her skin open.  
  
“How do you know my name?” he snarls, eyelights flicking up to her face for only a second before they're stuttering away again. She tilts her head.  
  
“I'm not so sure that I do, dearie,” she says slowly. “You...you look like him, but you're not...who _are_ you?”  
  
Which, _that_ doesn't make any fuckin' sense, does it, and he scowls, opens his mouth to remind her that _she's_ the one who knows _his_ name, he's never seen her before in his life, doesn't know shit about her except that there's a pretty good reason most of monsterkind is terrified of spiders.  
  
Except then, over her absurdly lace-covered shoulder—  
  
“Muffet?”  
  
No.  
  
Oh, no, _no,_ he came looking for sans, he actually—he must've skipped his run this morning, must have been angry enough to prioritize locating his missing property over his beloved routine and that can't be good, right, Papyrus _thrives_ on routine—  
  
If sans had any hold on himself, if he wasn't already shaking and sweating and teetering dangerously on the brink of hyperventilating, he might have actually registered that Papyrus didn't look angry at all. Sleepy, maybe a little confused, the lines of his face relaxed and unfamiliar. He might have registered the hand-rolled cigarette clamped between blunt fangs, might have noticed that he's wearing a hoodie in an obnoxious shade of orange sans has never seen before in their laundry.  
  
He doesn't, of course. Everything in him, every sluggish, wretched survival instinct immediately kicks into overdrive, a frantic, pounding need to get out, get _away_. So he screams instead, this horrible, humiliating animal wail, and hurls himself out of the spider-woman's—Muffet's?—lap into the snow.  
  
“Don't!” Muffet protests, reaching for him with three hands. “Oh, dear, no, you're going to—”  
  
_Hurt yourself_ , he thinks she might have said, dimly because right, right. His leg.  
  
“I'm s-sorry,” he tries to slur in Papyrus's direction.

 

He's out before his head even hits the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> red vs. blue
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> 
>  
> 
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> ....i'm so goddamn drunk and also thank you so much to everyone who left feedback! you're the cat's pajamas.

sans wakes up alone.  
  
That's pretty par for the course, honestly. Pap's a criminally early riser, so by the time he's dragged his lazy ass out of bed, his little brother is nearly always already finished with his morning workout and well on his way to the end of a five-mile run.  
  
Generally, sans manages to remember to set his phone alarm at night to allow himself plenty of time to stare blearily up at his ceiling and talk himself into standing up. Today, though—   
  
He shoves himself up with a tiny strangled sound in the back of his throat, panic hammering abrupt at the inside of his bare rib cage when he realizes it's _way_ too bright outside to be early morning, he must have _forgot_ , he must have—   
  
_Shit_.  
  
He scrambles out of the tangle he's made of his sheets, thankful he'd at least fallen asleep in his sweatpants. If papyrus hasn't stormed upstairs to kick him out of bed yet then maybe he got lucky, maybe his brother overslept, maybe he got distracted out on his run...?   
  
Maybe sans has time to correct his mistake before Pap even realizes he made it.  
  
It's only when he rolls himself to the edge of the mattress, a habit born of years sleeping five inches off the floor, that he realizes something is deeply, _deeply_ wrong.  
  
He tumbles gracelessly to the carpet with a startled yelp which is fucked on a couple levels—the fall was way too far and since when does he have stupid soft navy shag where scuffed floorboards should be?  
  
There...there are curtains on the windows. Photographs and posters hung on the walls. A laundry basket tucked neatly in the corner, and no evidence of the vague stink of nightmare sweat and terror that permeates everything he owns. The mattress he'd just vacated sits atop a sturdy wood bedframe he's never seen before in his life and he realizes when he squints at the sheets that they're covered in a little pattern of faded blue flowers.  
  
What. The _fuck_.  
  
He's even wearing a pair of sweatpants that aren't his, soft dove-grey with a stripe of teal down the leg, shoved up to just below his kneecaps, and that's what makes the skin he doesn't have _crawl_ because that means someone undressed him, right, someone saw him limp and unconscious and put their fucking _hands_ on him and—   
  
—and what they'd done, instead of _literally anything else_ , was wrap something stickysoft, numbing and glowing faintly green around the horrible break in his leg, and tuck him into bed.   
  
So. Huh.  
  
That's...different.  
  
His leg doesn't even hurt anymore, though the green stuff clings weirdly to his fingerbones when he prods experimentally at it. Leaves his fingers kind of numb too, actually, but when he pushes himself shakily to his feet, the leg holds. He takes a tentative step.  
  
_That_ he feels, icy-jagged shards of glass right down to the marrow, but he doesn't fall. That's the important part. The pain is—well, there's sweat beading on his forehead, but he thinks he could probably run a short distance on it if he had to. He'll probably have to.  
  
Because this, no matter how warm and cozy, no matter how many astronomy books line the neat oak shelves on the facing wall, this is not a place he recognizes. And that actually just makes the books creepier, doesn't it, because that means his kidnappers have been _watching_ him, means they know something about him he isn't sure his own brother could be bothered to remember.   
  
But. The spider-woman—Muffet, he amends, chuckling darkly to himself—had definitely known his name. Called him by it and everything, except then she'd taken it back and said...what was it?   
  
_you look like him._  
  
Who the fuck was _him?_  
  
In all the months (years?) he's lived out on stuttering repeat, in all the times he's killed and been killed and watched his baby brother crumble to dust at his feet and drunk himself unconscious afterwards _every goddamn time_ he has never, ever experienced a timeline so jarringly _other_.  
  
(And that's including The Very Worst Timeline, isn't it, the sick one he tries not to think about, where he saw the needlesharp edges of Chara's smile on the bridge and the dust on their ratty sleeves gone tacky with their own blood, and he just...he didn't bother at all.  
  
He walked home without seeing anything except for the scuffed toes of his own sneakers crunching through the permafrost. He lay in his bed, numb, and stared at the cracked ceiling as the sun set somewhere he couldn't fucking see.  
  
He thought he might know something, feel a tug in his chest when it was time for his little brother to die, but when Chara came skritch-scratching at his bedroom door with their knifepoint and bitten-bloody fingernails, he only asked, dull, voice ringing too loud in his skull, "how long?"  
  
The scratching stopped. "How long _what_ ," Chara hissed.  
  
" _when did Papyrus die_ ," he ground out and Chara chuckled, tapping arhythmic patterns with their fingertips into the wood.  
  
"You'd know if you bothered to show up, wouldn't you?" A tiny fist suddenly slammed down on the door, harder than should realistically be possible.   
  
Again. _Again_. And then a hail of blows, furious, crunching things that made sans grimace as much as his perma-grin allowed—this wasn't the first time Chara had beat their knuckles bloody on his bedroom door, but it was never exactly easy to listen to.  
  
"you know that won't work," he offered after several terrible minutes of the sounds. There was a squelching wetness to the blows now that he'd rather not think about, thanks all the same, but when Chara spoke, they didn't sound fazed in the least.  
  
"I mean, I've never actually _tried_ beating your door down barehanded," they murmured, cool as a cucumber. "I'll know after this, won't I?"  
  
So sans just lay there, counting the cracks in the ceiling and listening to Chara's huffing breath for several more long minutes. The kid would get bored. They always did, eventually.   
  
sans had all the time in the world.  
  
"Fine," Chara spat eventually. "Fine. I'll figure some way in there, buddy, don't you worry. I'm not done with you yet. I missed you, sans, I really did, _but my aim is getting better_.")  
  
Even that horrorshow didn't twist something in his ribcage the way those goddamn flowered sheets do. This...shit, it looks like a child's bedroom, save for the enormous bed, and there is _nothing_ about that he likes, especially in combination with the kidnapping.  
  
"please don't be a weird sex thing, please don't be a weird sex thing," he chants to himself and shuffles forward tentatively towards the door. There's no sign of his clothes and shoes so it's a pretty safe bet they'll have thought to take his phone, too. He can't exactly call Papyrus for help.  
  
It's not that he thinks his captors are stupid enough to leave his door unlocked, but hey. No harm in trying, right?  
  
No sooner have his claws closed around the doorknob, though, than it's twisting open, the door swinging outwards and leaving him face-to-face with—   
  
Welp. With _him_.  
  
"oh," the other sans says, eyelights bright, wide— _blue_?—in a way that doesn't look at all familiar, though sans can't stop staring at the identical sweep of the sphenoid bone, the precise curve of the ocular cavity, because that is _his_ face this guy's borrowing, thanks, but he's using it all wrong. "dude, you shouldn't be standing! Paps'll kill me if you pass out again. come on, giddyup there, cowboy."  
  
He waves sans back into the bedroom and sans only barely manages to catch himself on the bedframe when he stumbles, half-falling onto the mattress. He scrambles backwards until his spine hits the wall, heedless of the way his bad leg protests at the movement because what. What is this. What the _fuck_.  
  
Where the fuck _is_ he?  
  
"y-you, what are you, a-are you—" he chokes out past the oil-slick panic climbing up his throat. That's not coherent, that's not even a complete sentence but it's all he can manage. His doppelgänger frowns, kind of. His browbone wrinkles, anyways, his head canting slightly to one side.  
  
"hey, why do you stutter? i don't stutter."  
  
"g-go f- _fuck_ yourself," sans spits and the not-him takes a step back, holding both hands out in front of him in the universal gesture of _I'm not armed, you asshole, calm the fuck down._  
  
"hey, no need for that, my man. i just came to check on your bandages, okay? i know this is all probably super confusing and trust me, it's _really_ weird on my end, but we're not gonna get anywhere like that! i'm sorry. i didn't mean anything by it, but that was pretty rude, wasn't it?"  
  
sans blinks. He doesn't know which part of that to fail processing first—should he focus on the bit where this asshole was the one who patched up his leg, or the fact that he's apologizing for nothing, or hey, maybe the fact that he's apparently somehow _kidnapped himself._  
  
His breath is coming in short, huffing little gasps now. The other skeleton's eye sockets soften.  
  
"dude, chill! i'm not gonna hurt you."  
  
"w-well how the f-fuck am _i_ s-supposed t' know that?" He pulls his injured leg closer to himself more out of instinct than anything else. It's not like the other sans doesn't know he's hobbled, not like it'll do shit to protect him the moment those weird, wide sockets flare hot with magic, and he can't even run, but.  
  
"why would i bother healing you if i wanted to hurt you? wouldn't that be a waste of time?”  
  
sans shrugs. He might have a point there—he can count one one hand the number of times his brother has allowed him medical attention, but those were for...pretty bad situations. He supposed nearly losing most of his leg might count.  
  
"one hp," he croaks and curls further into himself. "c-can't int-terrogate me f-for long otherwise. i don't— _heh_ —i d-don't hold up well under p-pressure.”  
  
The other sans stares at him, eyelights shrunk to blank pinpricks. "was that...a joke?" he asks slowly. “because it was not great.”  
  
sans huffs out a shaky laugh at that. “what kind of goddamn amateur doesn't CHECK their targets?” he asks instead of an answer. “for all you know, i could be a boss monster. “  
  
His twin narrows his eye sockets. “you're not—okay, man, i know you're freaked, but I have _no idea_ what you're talking about. why don't we start with that 'target' thing. why do you think we're keeping you here?”  
  
“I don't _know_ ,” sans growls, frustrated. “it'd be a lot easier for both of us if you'd just tell me.”  
  
“what?” The other sans frowns. “dude, _what._ i meant why are you so convinced we're stopping you from going anywhere? your door wasn't locked. you're not tied up. you can leave, if you want to.”  
  
sans just stares. “i can what,” he says.  
  
“leave.”  
  
“just like that.”  
  
“...yeah?”  
  
He should. He really, really should, because the other sans— _don't think about what that means now, don't think about anything except getting out—_ makes no move to stop him, even when he cautiously pushes himself out of the bed and takes a step towards the door.   
  
“you're _hurt_ ,” blue-eyes says gently, as though he thinks sans might have forgotten, and also might bolt like a startled pony at the sound. “you can go, but you won't get very far. that's not a threat!” He waves both hands frantically when sans stops dead in his tracks, as though he's trying to shoo the very thought away. “seriously. i just want to help. please,” he adds. “ _please_. man, you—you _whimper_ in your sleep, i can't—”   
  
What the other sans _couldn't_ , he never found out because not half a second later, with sans still a wretched six feet from the door—  
  
“Oh, hey. You look...better?” _Stupid_ orange hoodie and _stupid_ sneakers with the left lace loose and dragging behind him, he's bleary-eyed and smoking _inside_ and all of this is wrong, wrong, _wrong—_  
  
It isn't his Papyrus. On some level, sans knows that.  It still doesn't stop him from crumpling gratefully at Papyrus's feet.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ptsd, paranoia, sans makes everyone uncomfortable


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> red continues to be freaked out
> 
> blue is helpful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys
> 
>  
> 
> you guys are so sweet. your comments feed me. i can't thank you enough! as always, please point out any mistakes you might notice, because english is not my first language and i am perpetually Learning
> 
> my tumblr is vstheworld.tumblr.com and i am always taking requests for fic and art! please come yell at me 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~i like it~~
> 
> see end notes for updated trigger warnings

“That's,” Papyrus says, “uh. That's pretty unsettling, man. You wanna maybe stand up, or...?”  
  
sans keeps his eyelights trained firmly on the scuffed toes of Papyrus's faded sneakers. The cadence is all off, _totally_ wrong, but the low burr of his voice sends something whiskey-warm pooling in his figurative belly. sans very nearly sighs in relief.  
  
“No? You're just gonna...stay down there, huh. Sans, is he—is he _kneeling_?”  
  
He absolutely is. It's horrible. It's _humiliating_. It's also the first familiar thing he's been able to grasp at since he woke up in a dumpster with his leg nearly amputated, so he thinks he can maybe be forgiven for the fact that he shivers and presses minutely closer before he catches himself.  
  
He can swallow the shame. He's good at that.  
  
It's fine.  
  
“Duuuude,” Papyrus groans and shifts back half a step. “Help me out, bro. He's got quite a grip.”  
  
Suddenly there's a warmth at his back, a small hand on his upper cervical spine, the other curling around his cracked fingerbones— _why do you stutter,_ he'd asked before, but all sans wants to know how he's kept himself so stupid smooth and whole and _white_ — and then he's gently prying sans's hand from its rigid hold on Papyrus. “hey, hey, shhh. it's okay. you're okay.”  
  
Which, what the fuck is _that_ supposed to mean, what the hell is he supposed to do with that? He's okay, like it changes a fucking thing. He's okay, like that word has ever had any real meaning.  
  
“suck my _dick_ ,” he snarls and jerks away from those tiny warm hands, twists himself to the side.  
  
He doesn't mean to lash out, exactly, he just. The other sans is _touching_ him and he doesn't get why, why his Papyrus doesn't say anything, why he would allow that. He doesn't get why the other sans moves without permission, doesn't understand why he's not down and crawling on his belly too, but everything is so different here anyways, maybe that's changed, too.  
  
He doesn't mean to hit the kid. he forgets the damn thing's there half the time unless he's tripping on it, but a single sweep of his tail catches his doppelgänger around the ankles and pitches him backwards. He lands with a yelp like a kicked puppy, eyelights gone huge and hurt in their sockets.  
  
There's a soft _ting_ and sans finds himself jerked abruptly into the air, hauled eye-to-burning-eye with a distinctly irritated Papyrus. “Careful,” he growls. “He's only got one hp, dickwad.”  
  
sans doesn't process more than a vague buzzing noise though, couldn't repeat Papyrus's order back if he was forced to at gunpoint. The words don't matter, anyways—what matters is that the thing in sans's belly positively _thrills_ at the flint in his not-brother's voice, and that drowns the world out all too efficiently, even though Papyrus's claws are clenched tight around empty air and not his throat. He looks, fuck, he looks _angry_ , and he's snarling something at sans and it's so goddamn blessedly familiar that sans goes slack in the hold of his magic without quite meaning to. It's a reflex, it just, it eases that ever-present knot of anxiety nestled snug in the center of his ribcage enough that he can almost breathe.  
  
“yeah,” he sighs, contented, sockets drifting half-closed. “ _yeah_ , boss. okay.”  
  
“ _Jesus_.” He doesn't have to look at not-Papyrus's face, doesn't want to—he can hear it in his voice, that faint, fascinated nausea, same his own brother had when he'd—  
  
—and no, _nope_ , he's not going there, he is not thinking about that right now. He can't think about that right now. He can't think about anything except the crushing grip on his soul and the vicious orange glow in Papyrus's left socket, the right gone dim and empty.  
  
“Okay,” Papyus says, sounding shaken, and lowering him too-gently onto the edge of the mattress. “So _that's_ a fun trigger I'd like to avoid forever.”  
  
“He, uh,” the other sans chimes in faintly from just outside his field of vision, “I think that...helped? He stopped hyperventilating, anyways.” He laughs, but it's a little too high, almost bordering on mania. “I mean, maybe try...sitting next to him. He seems to like you.”  
  
“Ohhhhh, no thank you, _nope_ ,” Papyrus says and lets his eyelights flicker back to life. He rescues his smoldering cigarette from the tiny hole it's burned in the carpet, winces, and sticks it back between his teeth. “Got any input here, buddy? You wanna maybe tell me where the fuck you popped in from, because I'm not really coming up with the Occam's Razor explanation here.”  
  
“i don't, i don't know,” sans mutters mostly to his kneecaps. “sorry.”  
  
“You have no idea how you wound up in Muffet's dumpster?”  
  
“i d-don't even know who m-muffet _is_.”  
  
“But you're Sans. _A_ Sans,” he amends, and sans huffs out a quiet laugh.  
  
“t-technically.”  
  
“And I'm guessing you're not from...” He makes a vague gesture at himself, at his brother, at the cheery room In general. sans twists twin fistfuls of the flowered sheets into tight knots. “You're not from around here, are you?”  
  
“i. don't. **k n o w**.” sans snaps.  
  
“Pap,” his sort-of-twin says, and he's, wow, he's suddenly really close to sans, close enough to wrap those hands around his shaking ones. He's smiling despite the bite to his voice, _real_ smiling down at him, eye sockets crinkled gently at the corners, not just their shared permagrin. “Let's let him chill for a bit before you start grilling him, okay? He's obviously not in a good state to answer your questions right now.”  
  
And that, 'grilling,' oh, sans knows what _that_ means. He was, he was right, of course he was, why else bother healing him? Why waste the time if they don't need something from him, why waste the effort to drag his sorry ass through the snow? _I don't know anything,_ he wants to say, _Boss doesn't share anything with me except the buckle end of a fuckin' leash,_ but. He's hardly eloquent at the best of times, and the incessant whirring of his animal brain firing on all cylinders robs him totally of speech. With a low, frightened whine, he curls further into himself, lets his eyelights gutter out in panic.  
  
There should have been a point—if the world was in any way fair, which he should know by now is little more than a cotton-candy fluff of stupid, wishful thinking—where his body became used to the hurt the way his mind has. Where the thought of pain doesn't frighten him, doesn't _rattle his bones_ (heh) in the least because it shouldn't be a surprise, the way his doppelgänger's hold on his wrists tightens. He should just close his eyes, should just duck his head and brace himself, but he thrashes in the other sans's grip because apparently, he's a fucking idiot who never, ever learns.  
  
“p-please,” he gasps. “please don't, don't—” He has no idea what he's asking for, no idea what he's begging his twin _not_ to do, exactly. He knows only that he hates the electric crawling sensation that skitters all up his arms at the unnerving feeling of his own fingers clenched around his bruised wristbones. This sans has a much stronger grip than he does—makes sense, healthier bones—though his claws and fangs are dull, rounded things, unfiled. Useless in a real fight.  
  
He expects it to work about as well as it did with his real brother, but to his considerable surprise, his doppelgänger drops his hands immediately and holds his own up in a clear gesture of defeat.  
  
“Woah, okay, no touching. Got it. I'm gonna—oh, how about I get you some water, huh? And it's probably time for another painkiller—”  
  
_another what_ sans doesn't say, because his jacket's gone and his stash along with it, but the little guy's practically skipping out of the room, apparently thrilled at the prospect of having something helpful to do. “It's the white ones, right, Paps?”  
  
“Yeah. The ones that say 'M357,'” Papyrus calls back. His eyes linger only a moment on the empty frame when his brother vanishes though the door, but they flick right back to sans once he's gone, narrowed and wary. “Let me see your arm,” he says.  
  
sans lifts his head at that, just a little. “what?”  
  
“Did I stutter?” Papyrus crosses the room to stand in front of him, one hand held out, demanding. He snaps his fingers, impatient. “Quick, c'mon, before he comes back. The left one.”  
  
sans, bewildered, obeys.  
  
He's not sure what he's expecting—for something to hurt, at the very least—but Papyrus's hold on him is light, gentle. He just flips sans's arm over and squints down at the neat block lettering dremmeled into the underside of sans's dirty ulna. He lets go. He looks a little sick.  
  
“Well, _shit_ ,” he mutters.  
  
sans, for once, agrees.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> implied incest, implied noncon/dubcon, sans continues to have a bad tims


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> family dinner goes all weird

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaand here's that honeymustard sort of
> 
> thank you SO MUCH for all your feedback, man, i'm 100% certain it's the only way i've been fired up enough to churn this out so fast
> 
>  
> 
> also, have a [ thing i'm drawin' ](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com/post/146686690031/angry-babybones-takes-the-dog-for-a-walk)

“i-it's fine,” Sans says from where he's huddled between Papyrus's splayed femurs. He cocks a weird, twitchy little smile up at him, but his sockets are black and blank and horrifyingly empty. “you d-don't—you don't need to _like_ me.”  
  
And he, _fuck_. He wants to protest that, yeah, it's nearly hardwired into him, because maybe it's not his brother's sweet, familiar face—scarred, bruises, those _awful_ jagged teeth and the scuffed gold (???) replacement—but the voice is the wretched same, even if this version shakes like a leaf.  
  
He doesn't want to hear that shit out of his brother's echoed mouth.  
  
Nothing about this is _fine_.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
It had seemed like it could have been, maybe, over a dinner of quesadillas and (possibly) a few too many beers.  
  
(It had seemed fine once they had convinced the new Sans that he was allowed to sit at the table, anyways, which was unnerving on a whole level Papyrus is _not_ sober enough to process, at the moment.)  
  
It was a pretty standard dining set, square wood table and four chairs—more than enough room  
for all of them, a space deliberately designed for guests, though the new addition to their household opted to huddle inside the kitchen doorway while Sans cooked instead, shifting his weight nervously from one misshapen foot to the other. His browbone looked more and more damp every second that ticked past. Papyrus couldn't imagine the thick black jacket was helping much on that front, but he'd looked so pathetically grateful when it had been returned to him—clean, folded, smelling markedly less of the sharp stench of fear-sweat—that they'd both just winced and held their tongues when he'd zipped the thing all the way up to his throat and tugged the hood up over his cracked skull.  
  
Papyrus cracked open a beer and propped himself up against the counter, free hand tucked into his pocket. He watched the new kid from the corner of his socket, waiting for—  
  
—well, okay, he wasn't sure what, exactly, he was waiting for, but he felt better with the sweaty little dude directly in his line of sight. He was across the room, well away from his _actual_ younger brother, who was whistling something off-beat and atonal as he worked. His back was to the other Sans, like he'd never even considered that the newcomer might pose any kind of threat. Knowing Sans, he probably hadn't. His brother always was far too trusting.  
  
Papyrus had learned otherwise. Fuck, had he learned.  
  
“are you planning on helping at all, or were you just going to hover?” His brother, armed with a frilly purple apron—a gift from Muffet for Sans, but kind of for Papyrus too, because it was way too big on him and also _hilarious—_ and a spatula, propped one gloved hand on his hip. He nodded to the cabinet behind Papyrus. “at least get me some plates down, you long-legged monstrosity.”  
  
Papyrus snorted out a laugh, tucked his beer into the crook of his elbow and complied, only remembering at the last moment to fetch a third. Sans dropped the first quesadilla—blessedly somehow unburnt, a rare survivor of the russian roulette game that was Sans in the kitchen—onto the top plate and tossed another tortilla into the pan.  
  
He winked at Papyrus. “thanks, bro. give that one to him, yeah? he looks like he hasn't eaten in, like, a _week_.”  
  
Papyrus personally thought it might have been considerably longer than that, judging by the way the newcomer eyed the food, pupils flicking up briefly to Papyrus's face, as if searching for some indication of what he was supposed to do with the offer. His hands balled tightly into small fists at his sides. He did not reach for it. He just bristled, unsure, wary as a stray dog.  
  
(The comparison wasn't _quite_ right. Papyrus had been the one to unbuckle the filthy red leather from around his neck. He saw the marks the thing left, where it had worn the kid's vertebrae shiny and smooth.  
  
He saw the tag with _his own goddamn name_ on it, his name and his number and a rank he's never held and _property of_ and.  
  
And a d-ring so scuffed up it had to have been hooked to a leash at some point. Probably many some points.  
  
He knew the kid wasn't a stray.  
  
He also hid the thing before Sans had a chance to see. He refused to regret that.)  
  
_“_ Go on,” Papyrus said, gently as he could manage. “Eat, man. You'll heal faster. Hey, you want a beer?”  
  
Looking positively dazed at the concept, the small skeleton nodded. “y-yeah, i, uh. p-please?”  
  
“All I've got are IPAs,” Papyrus said, taking a long sip from his own bottle and pulling open the refrigerator door. He rescued one from behind a stack of—what else—plastic tubs of taco meat and twisted off the cap with a practiced motion and a soft _pop_. “That okay?” He held it out to the kid, who reached for it with trembling fingers that Papyrus really tried his level best not to stare at.  
  
Speech seemed to have escaped his brother's counterpart entirely at the gesture, though. He tried once, twice, coughed, and then simply scowled, mouthed “thanks” and took a tentative sip, as though he fully expected Papyrus might still change his mind. He kept his eyelights fixed unwaveringly on Papyrus's knees.  
  
“Don't mention it,” Papyrus shrugged. He pulled out his usual chair where Sans had already set his plate, dropped into the seat and reached for his food with a pleased sigh, suddenly all too aware of how goddamn _hungry_ he was.  
  
Had he skipped lunch...? Yeah, he'd probably skipped lunch, considering he'd been headed to Muffet's when his brother's twitchy little doppelgänger decided to make his debut appearance, and it wasn't like there was much time to grab a burger, after. Sans didn't seem to have burned his, either, in a rare lucky streak, and he's just opened his mouth to take an enormous bite of crisped tortilla and melted cheese, when—  
  
“not to criticize your life choices by any means, pal, but, uh...wouldn't you be more comfortable in an actual chair?”  
  
Papyrus blinked.  
  
“i-i'm fine,” drifted vaguely up from somewhere around the region of his shinbones and—the kid was sitting at his feet, hunched awkwardly on all fours like a dog. He was also watching Papyrus with rapt, unblinking attention. He hadn't touched his food yet.  
  
He was waiting for Papyrus to eat, he realized, with an uncomfortable little lurch in the pit of his not-stomach.  
  
“Sit in a chair, what the _fuck_ ,” he snapped without quite meaning to because what is he supposed to do with _that_? The new Sans's eye sockets immediately widened in something akin to panic. He actually _scrambled_ to obey, and in his haste to get himself into a chair, left his beer on the floor.  
  
He curled up in his seat like a frightened child, knees tucked to his chest though there was no way the position was comfortable, with his still-healing leg. He wrapped his tail over his feet and held onto it with those grimy fingers, still watching Papyrus like an unsettling little hawk.  
  
“Eat,” Papyrus said slowly, sockets narrowed.  
  
Sans did. Like a feral thing happening on an abandoned kill, with all the pragmatic speed of a scavenger, he tore into the food. Papyrus and his own Sans watched, horrified, as he downed the thing in under a minute and didn't ask for more, though he was clearly starving. He didn't even reach for his beer.  
  
He just sat, staring at nothing, saying _nothing_ , and licking the oil from his fingerbones with a conjured tongue. The faint pink glow of his magic did nothing to mask the exhausted circles dragged deep below his eye sockets, though it did glint tellingly off of a twin set of silver bars shoved though the appendage.  
  
Papyrus never did finish his dinner.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
The small hands on his thighbones, busted and greyed as they are, look _just_ like his little brother's when they're curled around Papyrus's wrists—though the only time _his_ Sans ever really touches him is when they're both bundled up on the couch with a horror movie on the TV and bowl of popcorn shoved into the space between them, passing a single, sweating beer back and forth.  
  
Sans has always been a lightweight, after all, and Papyrus prefers to keep him in the dark about his own decade-long affair with their liquor cabinet which, speaking of—he's gonna need a large fuckin' drink to get back to sleep tonight after waking up to _this_.  
  
This is _not fine._  
  
Sans curls a hand around the curve of his ischium through the thick cotton of his sweatpants with absolutely no warning. Papyrus starts at the touch, snaps back to himself with a strangled little intake of breath and hisses “What are you—?”  
  
“it's _okay_ ,” Sans repeats. “j-just let me, okay, i c-can—i can, it'll be good. p-promise, you just, you g-gotta let me—” He reaches for the drawstring of Papyrus's pants with shaking fingers and he's—christ, he's _pressing his teeth_ against the sensitive ridge of bone, letting them part just enough for that goddamned tongue to slip through, he's—  
  
Papyrus's sluggish brain manages to finally sound the alarm as the tongue presses hot over his (blessedly) still-clothed pubic arch. He grabs frantic for Sans's wristbones, manages to catch both in one of his and _hold_ , despite the way the smaller skeleton struggles. With the other hand, he grabs Sans firmly by the bruised jaw and shoves his head away, shoves that _tongue_ away _,_ snarls “No, _no,_ what the fuck do you think you're _doing_?”  
  
Sans has gone slack in his hands, small shoulders heaving with each breath. He is impossibly still in Papyrus's grip, frozen like a deer in goddamn floodlights, his cheekbones flushed, eyelights wild and pulsing unevenly. He tips his skull back, though, presses himself more firmly into the grip nearly wrapped around his throat. Licks at his fangs, too slowly to be anything but an invitation. Grins.  
  
“ _oh_ ,” he murmurs. He sounds inordinately pleased with himself, a low rumble from the chamber of his empty ribcage that twists something faint and painful where Papyrus's own gut should be. “you're not so different after all, huh?”  
  
Whatever _that's_ supposed to mean.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man, uh. stockholm syndrome, sans is a Good Dog, collars, unhealthy relationships, unsafe bdsm practices, dubcon, incest
> 
> did i miss anything?
> 
>  
> 
> [ another gross sin doodle ](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com/post/146882356576/weve-all-been-there-pal-from-this-fic)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> blue does A Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so, so much to everyone who's left me feedback, and a shoutout to godoflaundrybaskets and 0netype, who are so encouraging and sweet i can't even you guys
> 
> y'all are champions
> 
> yell at my tumblr: vstheworld.tumblr.com or (nsfw) morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com for some doodlin'

“so,” Sans says brightly once his brother's snores have finally evened out into a soft rhythm, “you, uh, you sure don't talk much with him around, huh?”  
  
Papyrus's head is a heavy, familiar weight on his shoulder, his breath hot on Sans's clavicle. He's sort of drooling a little bit, even, clutching onto an empty beer bottle like it's a teddy bear, and Sans wishes for the life of him that he could understand what it is in his sweet, sad brother that has his doppelgänger frozen in terror every time they so much as make eye contact.  
  
Papyrus normally didn't drink _that_ much the night before a morning shift, but to be fair, he'd been matching the new Sans beer for beer. If Sans has picked up anything about his twitchy little twin in the handful of hours he's been conscious, it's that the guy seems pretty well-acquainted with the bottom of a bottle.  
  
His skittishness seemed to increase exponentially with every drink Papyrus finished. He didn't seem happy about it, but he never refused the bottles Papyrus kept handing him, even if he looked more and more distressed each time he twisted a cap off with deft fingers.  
  
Pap's a giant, sure. He's kind of got a tendency to loom, like he's not totally sure just how big he is, and Sans can sort of see how that might be intimidating, if you didn't know him.  
  
But. This is a Sans, right? A Sans from....somewhere else he doesn't quite understand, okay, a Sans that probably shouldn't be able to exist in the same reality as him, never mind curl up at Papyrus's feet and work his way steadily through a twelve-pack, but.  
  
He should know Papyrus too.  
  
“sorry,” his not-twin mutters to his own curled toes. “i don't know much aside from what i told you, though.”  
  
“yeah.” Sans sighs and tips his head back to stare up at the ceiling, browbone wrinkled in thought. “so you just...woke up there.”  
  
His counterpart sighs, picks at the label of his beer. “yeah.”  
  
“and you don't remember anything? you weren't—” he cuts himself off and then, apologetically, “i mean, Pap gets pretty hammered every time he goes to Muffet's, I just thought—”  
  
And that's a flinch, that's the closest thing he's gotten to a reaction out of the guy in at least the last hour. His head snaps up, sockets wide in what might be surprise, if only he didn't look so horrified about it. “Papyrus...does this regularly?” he asks quietly.  
  
“uh...yes?”  
  
“fuuuuuck,” he whispers, low and awed. “how do you—”  
  
“how do i...?”  
  
He somehow scrunches down even further into his jacket, shoving both hands deep into the pockets and dropping his gaze back down to his own feet. He's silent, still, for such a long time that Sans nudges at him with one knee and even then, he doesn't look at Sans. It sort of sounds like he's grinding his teeth. “d-doesnt it _hurt_?”  
  
“doesn't _what_ hurt?”  
  
“when he— “ and they're so close there, so close to his dented little doppelgänger spilling something quantifiable at last, but he shrinks into himself and shakes his head instead. Takes a long swig from his probably-warm beer. The tip of his tail beats a tense staccato on the carpet. Sans is pretty sure he hasn't noticed.  
  
“where are you from?” Sans asks gently, sick. “what...man, what _happened_ to you?”  
  
“i—how the fuck you expect _me_ to answer that?” his twin rasps with a humorless little chuckle. “i just...this isn't where I'm from. I know that much. _that_ ,” and here, he jerks his head at Sans's big brother, curled around him and snoring softly, “isn't my brother.”  
  
“dude, i hope not.” Sans eases out from under Pap's arm and slides to the floor with a soft _thump_. He reaches for his twin's hand, traces his thumb over a nasty crack spanning the width of his palm. Doesn't miss the way the other Sans sucks a breath in sharp through his teeth at the touch, but doesn't pull away. “no offense, but your brother sounds like a real asshole.”  
  
“you don't even lock your _door_ ,” the other Sans says instead of any kind of real response. “do you—you really don't worry about that?”  
  
He's dodging. Sans knows it—his brother gets the same kind of cagey look about him when he's trying not to tell Sans something, flicks his eyelights quick to the side _exactly like that_ when he's forced to make eye contact.  
  
Sans hates it when Papyrus does that.  
  
But if he's like Papyrus in that regard, it's likely he doesn't corner well either—Pap gets snappish and cruel with his metaphorical back to the wall, like panic just saps all that chill right out of him, like he looks at Sans and doesn't see anything familiar. Like he's an enemy, which never lasts long, but continues to suck every single time. He's learned to leave his brother exits and right now, his doppelgänger is broadcasting loud and clear that he requires the same courtesy.  
  
Sans blinks at the front door. “about...?” Papyrus had a bad habit of forgetting to lock the thing behind him when he stumbled home from Muffet's. More than once, Sans has opened the front door to leave for work and found his brother's keys still hanging from the lock, blessedly somehow untouched.  
  
They lived in a pretty decent neighborhood. It also helped, probably, that they didn't have much worth stealing—the tv was too big to smuggle out unnoticed, and he had a hard time imagining anyone would bother breaking in for his action figure collection. “i mean, I do wish Pap would learn to lock the door, but.” He shrugs. “Snowdin's pretty quiet. Is it different, where you're from?”  
  
For a moment, dim pink eyelights fix on him and just—he stares, blank, like he maybe doesn't understand the question.  
  
“yeah,” he murmurs eventually, gaze flicking off to the left. “It's...different.”  
  
He's quiet for a long time, after that, but he lets Sans hold onto his hand, so.  
  
He'll count it as a win.  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
Papyrus doesn't knock.  
  
He can't, with the armful of not-Sans, wrapped around him like a koala. He's shaking so hard Sans can hear his grimy bones rattling even from across the room. His flushed, ruddy cheekbones are pressed deep into Pap's bare shoulder, his back heaving in what looks like the beginning stages of a really spectacular panic attack.  
  
“Um,” Sans says. He wasn't sleeping before he'd been so rudely interrupted. Instead, he's propped up against his headboard, battered copy of _A Brief History of Time_ sprawled open across his lap, wearing his glasses and chewing on the end of a pen— not exactly equipped for a sleepover—but Pap's eye sockets are _frantic._  
  
He deposits the other Sans onto the foot of the bed, scrubs one hand over the back of his skull, mutters, “I'm, I'm going to Muffet's,” and promptly vanishes with a disarming _pop._  
  
“He's n-not, he's not wearing a sh-shirt,” the other Sans points out, blank sockets still fixed on the patch of carpet Papyrus had occupied not five seconds earlier. He's sweating again, fingerbones curled tight into the ragged hem of his hoodie. He looks like he's going to be sick.  
  
“she'll think it's funny,” Sans says, waving a hand in dismissal. He sticks his pen into the book to hold his place and flips it closed, setting it next to his alarm clock, pushes his glasses up onto the top of his skull and pats the pillow next to him. “you wanna come up here and tell me what that was all about?”  
  
His doppelgänger furrows his brows in what might count as a scowl on their fixed grin. He does not move. “no,” he snalps waspishly, his shoulders hunching up around to where his ears should be. “i really don't.”  
  
His hands go still in his lap but they don't relax much. There's a nasty crack spidering all across the ridge of his knuckles, both hands, like he'd thrown a punch at something unyielding and promptly just gone for it again with the other fist. As Sans watches, the left hand reaches absent for his own throat, claws pausing just short of making contact, like he's feeling for something that's no longer there.  
  
(Sans has a pretty good idea of what that something could be.  
  
Papyrus isn't nearly as good at hiding things as he thinks.)  
  
Sans considers his next words carefully, head canted slightly to the side.  
  
It's...strange, isn't it, that he seems terrified of both of them, but only slavishly obedient to one? He hadn't really thought it strange, the new Sans's bristling introduction, but maybe that was because he hadn't actually seen Papyrus yet.  
  
It didn't seem odd that the newcomer—injured and scared and clearly coming out of some kind Of bad situation—would snap at anyone who got close. It was only natural, only self-defense, but.  
  
Papyrus seemed ( _seems_ ) to...override that, almost. Like somehow his needs prioritize whatever terror has his twin so shaken.  
  
If he'd just stopped to process at the time, if he had just thought it through, he would've seen something like this coming, maybe.  
  
Not that he wants to—it's still _him_ , after all, still essentially _Sans_ under those horrible clothes and that weird, vacant smile and it's deeply, deeply unsettling to realize that it's only some lucky cosmic twist that landed him here, in this cozy bed with a warm—if generally lethargic and currently absent—brother and a job he adores instead of...well.  
  
Wherever _he's_ from.  
  
And Sans isn't naive, okay—he's still a royal guard. He still has a job that's got him rubbing elbows with the less savory residents of the Underground. He's seen...not a lot of it, but enough to know _clumsy_ doesn't always translate the way it should. Enough to guess, at least a little, what it means that his doppelgänger flinches at even the slightest movement from Pap, but seems relatively unruffled by Sans, even as he huddles, shivering at the foot of the bed.  
  
He told him _no_ , after all. Sans gets the impression that's not a word that comes out of his mouth with any kind of frequency.  
  
“Okay,” he says, and squirms back into his pillows. The glasses join his book on the bedside table and he is acutely aware of two dull pink eyelights fixed on him as he snuggles down under the covers. “Turn the light off when you go to bed, if you don't mind? There's books, if you're not tired.”  
  
He can't imagine that's the case. The guy looks positively drained, pale, deep shadows dragged beneath his eye sockets, and the kind of slump to his shoulders that can only mean bone-deep—hah—exhaustion.  
  
He's still staring when Sans finally drifts off to sleep, though.  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Sans wakes up at around three am, mouth dry as a desert and manages to make it all the way downstairs for a drink and back upstairs to his bedroom without actually remembering he has a guest.  
  
(He makes a stop at Pap's door to check on him, of course, and is pleased to see that he managed to kick his sneakers off before collapsing on the mattress this time.  
  
He's somewhat less pleased when he realizes the whole room reeks of gin and dirty laundry.)  
  
He starts, nearly drops his glass when he sees the dark figure on his comforter. He only just manages to catch the thing before it falls to the carpet.  
  
The other Sans is curled into a little ball like a dog, skull pillowed on crossed hands, his nasal cavity tucked neatly under the end of his tail. He's still fully-dressed, the fur-lined hood of his jacket obscuring the top half of his skull.  
  
He looks so much smaller than Sans feels.  
  
It's the work of only a moment for him to gather his pillows and dump them at the foot of the bed before clambering carefully over his twin and slipping back under the covers. He's careful not to touch the other occupant of the bed, but he'll be damned if he lets a guest sleep at his _feet_.  
  
He does not, however, move away when his doppelgänger gives a tiny, contented sigh, or when he shifts minutely into Sans's side in search of warmth.  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> red hates parties.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this was actually supposed to be half of one chapter, but it was getting mad long. i'm sorry it's sort of weirdly chopped in half and might not make total sense just yet, but hopefully the second bit will be up real soon.
> 
> you guys. you guys are all so very precious and sweet with your feedback i cant even <3 <3 <3
> 
> a HUGE thank you to godoflaundrybaskets, who actually podficced (is that a verb??) this gross thing and uh, i'm really sorry that you're probably gonna have to narrate something p nasty here soon if you continue down that path.
> 
> go check out the dulcet tones [ here ](https://godoflaundrybaskets.net/)
> 
> I'm always up for requests at vstheworld.tumblr.com (sfw) or morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com (nsfw) and sometimes i doodle things

[then]  
  
It happened for the very first time—not the last, christ, not even _close_ —when Papyrus was sixteen years old, already a good foot taller than sans, and absolutely trashed out of his mind.  
  
Graduation was...sort of a big deal when there was maybe a fifty-fifty shot of even making it to adulthood, so he had not said a single word as he watched Papyrus shove half the contents of the liquor cabinet into his backpack with such a blank look of practiced calm that it almost belied the clinking of glass on glass that accompanied every step. “Don't you dare tell Dad,” he'd growled at sans, but he'd also pressed a bottle of really good whiskey into sans's stunned hands and added, with a clap on the shoulder and something that was very nearly a smile, “but blame that one on me, okay?”  
  
Gaster made absolutely no move to stop Papyrus from going to the party.

Actually, sans wasn't totally sure Gaster was even aware of what day it was, or that there were other people in the house at the moment. He'd been buried to the eye sockets in a thick report printed on (weirdly) pink paper, his brow ridge furrowed in contemplation, for hours on end now. He did manage to wave, absent, as Papyrus stalked through the living room.

  
Undyne was waiting for him at the front door, a perfect mask of wide-eyed innocence fixed on her face, even as sans sniffed pointedly at the air around her. Her single good eye was clear—she at least wasn't stupid enough to smoke before she came over, but she'd also been selling to sans on a weekly basis for most of her teenage years. It's not exactly a surprise, the thick, citrusy smell that wafts from her coat pocket.  
  
“none of the hard stuff,” he murmured, low enough that Gaster couldn't hear, even if he'd been paying any kind of attention. She didn't look at him, but she nodded once, short and sharp, and her long fingers found his easily. She slid a small packet wrapped in a plastic sandwich bag into his palm. He frowned. “what is this? i picked up this week already.”  
  
“You'd have graduated too, right?” she said softly and shrugged, eyes still fixed ahead on Papyrus as he adjusted and readjusted his scarf, scowling at himself in the mirrored surface of the fridge. “Last year, if you went to school. Sucks you never got a party.”  
  
He managed to catch himself before he outright laughed at the idea, but he also didn't try to hand the thing back. “...uh. thank you?”  
  
Papyrus barreled through the doorway before she had a chance to say anything else, though, and seized her rudely by the elbow, dragging her behind him into the crisp bite of the night air.  
  
He didn't look back.  
  
  
  
*  
  
At exactly three thirteen AM, sans's phone chirped a sound loud enough to jolt him fully awake, a sound he didn't hear often from the thing,  
  
_One new message,_ the screen read. sans scrubbed blearily at his eyes, squinting down at it. He didn't recognize the number, but that wasn't saying much, considering Gaster and Papyrus were the only people who ever really needed to get in touch with him.

_come get your dickwad brother_ , the message read, which narrowed it down _some_ , but not entirely.

  
_who/where r u_ he sent back and received in response a picture of Undyne's scowling face, immediately followed by a blurry photo of what he assumed was the location of their graduation party. _is he ok??_  
  
_he's an asshole_ , Undyne replied, _but he's fine. he just needs to take his drunk ass home._  
  
She didn't warn him.  
  
In her defense, she maybe thought Papyrus's temper had the ability to distinguish between friend and foe when he was that annihilated. She maybe thought sans could ( _would_ ) hold his own. She maybe thought he wouldn't get hurt, that he'd be able to wrestle his baby brother back home and safely into bed before he did any more damage. He didn't think she meant any harm and hell, when he showed up to the house, he didn't ask about the torn collar of her shirt. That was on him.  
  
He didn't blame her. He _doesn't_ blame her. It's not her fault he's so weak.  
  
So.  
  
The first time it happened, it happened at a party.  
  
  
  
*  
  
[now]  
  
Three days into sans's impromptu stay, the brothers throw a party, kind of. It's fine. It's whatever. They have lives, obviously, and it had been planned for weeks prior to his intrusion, which. It's not like anyone could have planned for _that_.  
  
Papyrus, for his part, had tried in vain to convince his brother to cancel it, despite the fact that the party was actually for him—he'd been promoted, apparently, though sans isn't quite sure which of his seeming multitude of jobs they're referring to. “It's just more paperwork,” Papyrus explains with a shrug. “Nothing to get excited about, but there's a pay raise, so.” He smiles, fond. “I think Sans just likes throwing parties, really.”  
  
“It won't be big! Just few friends, and we'll probably order pizza and watch bad movies. You're welcome to join us,” the other sans says apologetically, his eyelights enormous as he curls his fingers around sans's tail. “But if you wanna stay upstairs, you can totally do that, too. No pressure, okay?”  
  
He strokes along one vertebra with a gentle thumb in a rhythm that's probably meant to be soothing. He doesn't try to touch sans's hands anymore—he'd been quick to figure out most of those horrible little twitches, those raw nerve endings that make sans lock up with terror when they're touched. Somehow, he manages to actually keep track of them.  
  
That's impressive in and of itself. Sometimes sans forgets himself, forgets entirely about a trigger until he's already panting in the python grip of a panic attack. His doppelgänger never repeats a mistake once he realizes it's been made.  
  
“Is that really a good idea?” Papyrus is slumped deep into the couch cushions, ever-present cigarette clamped in his teeth, his lap occupied with a half-empty beer bottle clenched between his knees and the video game controller he's been steadily mashing to death for the last hour. “I mean, just a few people is still...people.” Onscreen, his character gets kicked off a ledge, dies with an entirely too-cheery little trill and respawns almost an entire level back. Papyrus swears viciously under his breath.  
  
He isn't trying to be cruel. sans is fully aware of the kid gloves Papyrus has been handling him with ever since That Night. He's noticed the apparent fervor with which Papyrus is determined to give him personal space, like there's an impermeable barrier three feet around him in every direction. Hell, he won't stay in a room with sans alone anymore, won't even look directly at him, for the most part, like...shit, like he's _afraid_ of sans or something, like he thinks sans is gonna jump him, like he would _ever_ —  
  
He is so, _so_ careful not to touch sans, never to be even within arm's reach. He prefers to wedge his younger brother between them instead at every available opportunity.

 

When sans had tried to visit his room the next night, he'd found the door securely locked. Which was precisely how it stayed, every night after.

  
'Forgets to lock the door sometimes,' his _ass._ Papyrus is downright meticulous about it. He's certainly more careful with that damned lock than he seems to be about anything else.  
  
sans can't figure out for the life of him how he's supposed to do anything if he can't _get_ to Papyrus.  
  
He...okay, he hasn't actually tried with the other Sans yet. He knows he should, knows he has two hosts in this house and he's not managed to figure out yet which one of them he's supposed to be attending to, but something weird squirms in his belly every time he blinks awake late at night to stare at his twin's slack, sweet face and consider it. His train of thought abruptly derails itself about the time he mentally works up the courage to tug those stupid flowered sheets down over his doppelganger's bare ribs.  
  
It just, it skips like a broken record and shorts something out in him, the thought of sliding his fingers along the sweeping curve of the kid's iliac crest. He doesn't know if it's the thought of touching himself that does it—because he doesn't, not ever, he _knows the rules—_ or if it's a genuine dislike of the other Sans's sturdy, rounded bones, his unbroken ribs, all those little stark dissimilarities between them that he keeps noticing.  
  
He could have done it by now easy, if his cigarette case had been returned along with his jacket. The other Sans only ever allows him a single white pill every four hours, though, and he whispers “Sorry,” every single time he gently nudges at sans's jaw until he opens his mouth to prove he's actually swallowed the thing. There's no chance of stockpiling, in any event.  
  
One pill is enough to dull the shattered-glass pain in his leg to a manageable roar, enough to let him walk short distances without too much difficulty. It's enough to leave him kind of buzzed too, heavy and loose and _definitely_ improved with every drink Papyrus brings him, but with two...man, with two, he could have fucked the kid that very first night. He could have crawled into his lap the moment Papyrus had dropped him onto the mattress. Could have gotten it over with early. Could have managed something like enthusiasm, probably, because the guy didn't exactly seem like the take-charge sort.  
  
Instead, he'd woken up the next morning choking on his own conjured tongue at an unfamiliar weight heavy on his chest, something warm and crushing and—  
  
—and drooling into his jacket, just a little bit. His twin had rolled onto his belly sometime during the night and was sprawled diagonal across the mattress, head pillowed on sans's chest. He only snuffled a little and shifted closer when sans drew a few deep, ragged breaths, quietly as he could manage.  
  
For a moment, sans was terrified that he'd done the _thing_ again, the thing that regularly got him kicked out of Papyrus's bed in the dim early morning hours. He had a bad tendency to gravitate towards papyrus in his sleep, always half conscious of the weight and warmth of another body in the same bed. His brother didn't exactly appreciate waking to a sweaty, shivering thing huddled against his back, which sans supposed he could understand. Papyrus had at least been kind enough to provide a cushion on the floor, though, for those nights sans couldn't manage the walk back to his own room, too drunk or stoned to teleport.  
  
No, he realized, blinking up at the bedposts, he's...no, he was still at the foot of the bed, only his pristine little counterpart had opted to join him. Must have been awake enough to move all his pillows, too, so it was...kind of a conscious choice, right, and he was trying to figure out what he's supposed to do here because these cues made absolutely _no_ _sense_ , when the other Sans let out a sleepy little grunt, stretched like a cat and smiled blearily up at him.  
  
“G'morning.”  
  
“h-hey,” sans offered back and waited for the kid to realize he was lying half on top of him. Waited for him to scowl, to pull away, to complain about the ragged breathing keeping him awake, the stench of stale sweat and unwashed bones, _something_.  
  
There was always something.  
  
He just yawned wide, though, enough that sans could see all the way back to his (perfectly fucking even) molars and promptly closed his eyes again. He dozed for another few minutes or so, and then got up, stretched again, and padded off down the stairs to make pancakes. He didn't order sans to follow.  
  
Nothing about the kid makes any _sense_.  
  
“Is that okay?” he's asking and sans blinks back to himself when the hand on his tail squeezes gently. “The party? Can you handle that?”  
  
It's like his doppelgänger can somehow tell he's spiraling off somewhere totally unrelated to the conversation, can see the blank way he stares into the middle distance, that he's not tracking the conversation at all. He's not shy about calling sans out. It's awful.  
  
sans winces. He's usually better about that, usually better about keeping himself grounded and rooted firmly in the moment. Except his pills are gone and his collar's gone and he hasn't smoked in about three days now, so it's not like there's a wealth of coping mechanisms to fall back on here, right? He can maybe be excused for the stupid, dull way he blinks at the other Sans and stammers, “y-yeah, sure. whatever.”  
  
So...it's not like they don't try give him an out.  
  
He's just too fucking stupid to take it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sans doesn't want to sleep with Sans but also he kinda does, attempted (vaguely referenced) sexual assault, actual (vaguely referenced) sexual assault,


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> red does real well at parties (past // present)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so hey y'all, i am SO SORRY about those of you that got notifications that this chapter posted yesterday--i had somehow managed to post it missing the first half, and therefore all context and in the process of trying to fix it, wound up deleting most of it.
> 
> remember how i said i drink a lot? i drink a _lot_.
> 
> anyways, sorry for the confusion. this hopefully makes some actual sense now.
> 
> thank you to everyone who's been so sweet and encouraging, and i hope you're still enjoying this! The /c part of h/c's coming soon, probably maybe

[now]  
  
  
  
Here's the thing: he doesn't think it through.  
  
Somehow, his mind never _quite_ managed to stitch together what 'just a few friends' could possibly mean past the vague concept of 'other people in the house.' That had been sufficient to distract him, really, because he still freezes up every time Papyrus enters the room, though he thinks maybe he's getting better about the actual reaction.  
  
Papyrus—his Papyrus—had liked it. As much as Papyrus liked anything, anyways, but there was always this little, unfamiliar spark of warmth to his eyelights when sans would curl up and cringe away from him, this tiny smile that never reached his eye sockets. Sometimes he'd even stroke a fond hand over the cracked ridge of his parietal bone gentle all the way down to the occipital, long, smooth strokes that would probably be better suited for petting a cat. He'd always laugh when _that_ made sans lock up, too.  
  
Papyrus had a nice laugh.  
  
This Papyrus...well, he didn't look nearly so amused the first time he startled sans badly enough to make him drop the glass he'd been holding.  
  
This Papyrus was quiet. Much quieter than sans was used to because he hadn't even heard the guy approach, hadn't even noticed he was sharing the room with someone else until he turned away from the sink where he'd been washing the dishes from breakfast to meet two sleepy eyelights paused in the doorway, fixed unwaveringly on him.  
  
He'd jerked sharply, surprised, and the glass slipped from his shaking claws to shatter on the tile between his bare feet. He didn't make a sound at the impact, just moved before he really thought about it, dropped automatic to his haunches to gather up the bigger pieces before his not-brother could get out more than “Hey, be _careful_ —”  
  
Which was dumb, of course, because what else would he be, holding a handful of glass shards? He nearly snapped something about how he wasn't Papyrus's brother, he wasn't small and soft and delicate, they didn't even really look alike, anyways, so why did Papyrus insist on babying him the way he did the other Sans?  
  
“I'm fine,” he ground out instead because he was stupid but not suicidal. He glared down at the tile, resumed collecting the pieces—the smaller ones this time—and did not look up again until he heard Papyrus sigh minutely and shuffle off into the living room.  
  
Less than twenty seconds later he'd been joined by his sort-of twin, armed with a broom, a dustpan and the gentle admonishment of “Not with your _hands_ , bro, c'mon.”  
  
That had only happened the once, though, and sans has managed to avoid destroying any more of their possessions since. He's managed to...just _not_ , to crush down the swell of panic at the smell of cigarettes and Papyrus's low whiskey rumble. He doesn't put his back to the wall, doesn't catalogue all available exits and hiding spaces and if he drops his gaze any time they say his name, well. He's pretty sure he doesn't make eye contact enough for them to even notice.  
  
The point is, he's...not good with them by any means, because he's not good with _anybody_ , but he's better. He's getting better.  
  
He's learning not to react, learning what makes his doppelgänger look at him with that crushed expression, like sans has just killed a beloved pet in front of him. He's learning what to avoid with the two of them—don't touch Papyrus, don't even get close, and the other Sans looks like he's going to cry every time sans so much as mumbles something self-deprecating—but the rules are fluid, inexact, goddamn _stressful_ , and that's just for the two of them.  
  
He didn't think it through.  
  
Undyne is the first one to show up for the party. He's the one to answer the door, and it's at the exact moment that he meets her yellow eyes—both of them, _weird—_ that he realizes the huge goddamn mistake he's made.  
  
She's...she's actually _pretty_ , he thinks, dazed. She shifts uncomfortably when his blank sockets linger on her too long. She coughs once, politely.  
  
“Uh, hi,” she mutters.  
  
She doesn't look like his Undyne the same way this Sans looks nothing like him. There's not a single scar on her, for one, her blue skin pale and clear. When she reaches out to shake his hand, the familiar crooked angles of her often-broken fingers are sleek and smooth instead. Her claws are trimmed short. They're painted pink.  
  
“Hi,” he manages thickly, taking the offered hand.  
  
She's a little bigger than his Undyne too, all the sharp lines of whipcord muscle replaced with soft, rounded curves, like she doesn't see the inside of a gym often. Her teeth are far too white, her hair too shiny, pulled back in a messy bun with no evidence of her undercut and. And she's wearing a dress. And makeup. And _heels_.  
  
She smiles at him like it's been startled out of her. It's nothing like the crooked little smirk he knows.  
  
What was he _thinking_?  
  
He can't do this.  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
[then]  
  
“He's upstairs,” Undyne says in greeting as she pushes past him. She doesn't pause, doesn't explain it, doesn't even really acknowledge that he's there otherwise, but her good eye flicks to his, catches for a second and holds.  
  
She...she looks _upset_ and sans can pretty definitively say that it's not an expression he's used to seeing on her narrow face. Even when she's angry, in all the years he's known her, she just bares every single one of those jagged teeth in a frighteningly bright smile but now she's chewing on her lower lip, canines smeared navy with her own blood gone nearly black in the dim porch light. Her single good eye is red and glassy—stoned or crying, he can't tell which, but he knows she wouldn't answer even if he asked.  
  
The staring doesn't seem to particularly please her, either. She sneers at him, smears blue all across her mouth when she wipes at her bloody nose with the back of one hand and spits onto the sidewalk, barely missing his sneakers. Her grip on the neck of her beer bottle is white-knuckled. “Good luck,” she snarls and stalks down the driveway.  
  
sans _almost_ calls after her, almost asks what happened, what his brother possibly could have gotten into during one of the few celebratory occasions in his short, hateful life with the only friend he's ever had. Almost, but his tongue's dry in his mouth. He can't choke out even a single syllable.  
  
Things don't improve once he's inside.  
  
This party is...well, this is the absolute fuckin' worst-possible scenario, isn't it? He didn't even realize there were this many teenagers in the whole of the Underground, never mind in his brother's social circle, but the place is packed practically wall-to-wall with monsters, most of them dressed in faded black and far too many towering over him by a good few feet. He realizes he's going to have to elbow through them to get to the staircase across the living room so it takes a minute, paused in the doorway, to talk himself into the thought.  
  
It's _hot_ and it's _noisy_ and some asshole has replaced all the lightbulbs with these neon purples and pinks that make the whole house look like a bad acid trip. There's a shitty little three-piece set up in the corner, some scruffy kids— two cats and an alligator—all wearing leather that can't possibly be comfortable in this armpit of a venue, amps turned up way the fuck too loud. He can't actually make out the vocals past the bass reverberating in his skull, but the orange cat monster is yowling something guttural into the microphone anyways. sans manages to be nearly grateful the racket is loud enough to drown the surrounding shouted conversations into a droning buzz, though he thinks calling it music might be a little generous.  
  
He starts when a blue rabbit monster shoves a plastic cup into his hand. His claws close automatic around it, more out of reflex than anything else. “what is it?” he shouts in a generally upward direction, but the the kid only grins and shrugs.  
  
“You look like you need it!” He has to lean down a considerable distance to yell into sans's ear canal. This close, sans can see that his pupils are _fucked,_ tiny black slits in a field of pale green. He lifts his own cup to sans in a kind of toast and throws it back in lieu of any real answer.  
  
_sure_ , sans thinks and follows suit. It burns on the way down, but it almost helps.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
'Upstairs' turns out to be what sans can only assume is their host's bedroom.  
  
The room is so dark that he doesn't see the red swelling of Papyrus's cheekbone until he's close enough to ghost a careful thumb over it. Papyrus, perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed, doesn't flinch away from the touch so much as _into_ it, but he sucks in a breath sharp between his teeth. His eyelights flick to sans for a beat before they return to their previous post glaring twin holes into the dusty curtains covering the window.  
  
“hey,” sans says, grateful that the closed bedroom door mostly muffles the noise from the band downstairs, grateful that he can sort of think again. “how you feeling, pal?”  
  
He looks...well, calling it _rough_ would be putting it too kindly. Papyrus is slumped forward, elbows braced on his femurs, clutching an empty plastic cup so hard he's cracked it. He's fully dressed, thankfully, but his scarf hangs uneven, almost looks like it might have been unwrapped and then hastily rewrapped with none of Papyrus's usual obsessive attention. That, strangely, bothers sans more than the way he's kind of swaying, so drunk he seems barely able to stay upright.  
  
“'M fine,” he mutters to the floor. “Didja see Undyne?”  
  
“yeah,” sans says. “yeah, she's, uh. she looked pretty pissed. you guys—you get in a fight?”  
  
Papyrus actually smiles at that, but it's this bitter, humorless thing sans has never seen on his face before. “Sure,” he agrees and takes a sip from the empty cup in his hands. He glares down at it when he realizes. His eyelights are tiny little pinpricks and he's kind of wringing his hands, pulling absently at his own fingers until the joints _pop. “_ Did she call you?” he asks eventually.  
  
“texted.” sans takes a cautious seat on the mattress next to his brother. “you wanna tell me what happened?”  
  
He isn't sure what the protocol is here. He doesn't have any real experience with this. He doesn't know what he's supposed to _do_ here. This is new, this is uncertain ground, this is...this is downright _alien_. This is something Gaster should have been doing, or maybe a real sibling because come on, what kind of perspective could he _possibly_ offer to his pseudo-brother on the subject of girls? He's met only a handful in his life, and one of them had likely just given Pap that spectacular black eye he's going to have in the morning.  
  
sans is a guard dog. He isn't equipped for this.  
  
“She's...she's not afraid of me,”Papyrus whispers, which is not exactly what he'd been expecting. Maybe it's the liquor, maybe his little brother is just low enough right now to be startled into honesty, but sans doesn't think Papyrus has talked to him about anything personal, given voice to anything he was feeling since he was first old enough to understand the danger in that kind of blind trust. If there's anything to Papyrus as a half-grown monster deeper than his perpetually-simmering rage, sans rarely sees evidence of it.  
  
His voice sounds wrong now though, thick and slurring. sans realizes, with vague dawning horror, that his little brother is actually _crying_.  
  
Papyrus sniffles, drags the back of his hand across his eyes and then he—he just leans into sans's side like it's nothing, a warm, unfamiliar weight that makes the blood sans doesn't have freeze in his figurative veins.  
  
How long has it been since Papyrus has done that? How long had it been since he's _cried?_ Hell, it's like he's eight years old all over again, curled into a stubborn little ball at the head of his bed and sobbing into his pillow because someone shoved him down on the playground, shoved him down and kicked him _twice, why are they so mean, sans, how do I make them_ like _me?_  
  
He didn't know what to do then and he sure as shit doesn't now, so he just curls his fingerbones around Papyrus's knee and says, soft as he can manage, “what do you mean?”  
  
The hollow chuckle that drifts from somewhere around his shoulder is hands-down the worst noise he's ever heard Papyrus make. “Are you joking? They're—everyone is _scared_ of us, Sans. Of you.”  
  
sans actually pulls back at that, sharp as a snapped fishing line. They're _what?_ “i didn't—”  
  
He doesn't know what he can possibly follow that with, though. That doesn't, christ, that doesn't even make _sense_ and Papyrus, of all people, should know it! He's seen the absolute pathetic worst of sans, seen him grovel, seen him crawl, seen him teathered in the shed like a misbehaving animal, hasn't he, he's _grown up with it_ —or something close to the worst, anyways.  
  
(He carefully _does not think_ about Gaster's hollow hands.)  
  
“You did,” Papyrus is saying though, his voice only barely permeating the buzzing that fills sans's skull. “Remember Becky?”  
  
“—oh.” sans does. Of course he does. He's pretty sure he couldn't pick her out of a one-monster lineup, but he's never quite forgotten the gentle cracking of her ribs all through the center of his magic, the bone splintering like wet wood. “yeah.”  
  
“I don't blame them,” Papyrus murmurs. “I'm scared of you sometimes.”  
  
sans can't stop the flinch that shudders through him at that. The very bottom of his not-stomach drops out and he makes a soft, wounded noise. “Pap, no, i would—i would never hurt you. not—not _ever_ , i wouldn't—how do you not _know_ that?”  
  
Papyrus pushes himself waveringly upright and turns towards sans. “No, I know. I know you wouldn't.” He's smiling, kind of, something small and sad, in spite of the tears tracked down his cheekbones. His voice sounds _wrecked_ , whiskey dragged over gravel and glass, when he rumbles, “But you're not scared of me either, are you?”  
  
—and that's about the time sans's awareness drops to exactly  
nothing outside the rapidly-shrinking distance between them. Papyrus's thumbs notch into the hinge of his jaw like puzzle pieces slotting into place and then he's pulling sans forward and everything inside him shudders to a halt because. Because Papyrus kisses him.  
  
Papyrus _kisses_ him.  
  
Papyrus kisses _him_.  
  
“ **s t o p t h a t** ,” sans gasps into his brother's mouth. He pulls back best he can manage with Pap's giant hands wrapped around his humeri and he pushes, futile and frantic, at his brother's chest. Papyrus does not let go. “P-pap, hey, no, what—what are you d- _doing_?”  
  
Papyrus doesn't answer. He does not explain himself. He also doesn't _stop_ , just redirects his attention determined to the line of sans's collarbone. He noses the collar of sans' jacket aside and when he bites, he bites down _hard_ , wrenching a yelp from between sans's gritted teeth.  
  
“Papyrus, st-stop,” he sobs, “th-that's enough. _please._ ”  
  
Papyrus does. For a second, long enough for sans to catch the breath that's been kicked out of him, he does. sans huffs this little sound of relief into the space he's been granted, his soul jackhammering at the inside of his ribs as he tries to bite back the nausea welling in his belly, to wrench his thoughts into some kind of coherency.  
  
Okay. _Okay._ Focus, asshole, keep breathing and _focus_ because Papyrus is—shit, Papyrus is a _kid_ and he's drunk and he's confused and he just got rejected by his best friend, probably, and sans, he really needs to be gentle here. He needs to be calm. He needs to reassure Papyrus.  
  
He needs to say _something._ He can't quite figure out how he's supposed to manage a proper sentence past the rock suddenly wedged sharp in the soft parts of his throat, though.  
  
There are still hands heavy on him. Papyrus is still pinning him in place, but he's at least put a few inches of distance between them. He doesn't say a thing. Instead he stares, blank and eerily still, unreadable as a statue, into sans's empty eye sockets. If he finds what he's looking for, he gives no indication.  
  
“ _No,_ ” Papyrus says and sans...he sort of loses thread of what happens after that.  
  
He's always had a shit memory, though, so.  
  
It's _whatever_.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*  


 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> incest, papyrus is a creep, papyrus doesn't understand consent, underage, underage drinking, disgusting punk house parties, implied noncon, sans has complicated feels about Undyne
> 
>  
> 
> Come yell at me at morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com (NSFW) or vstheworld.tumblr.com (SFW)
> 
> also sometimes I doodle stuff


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> blue tries his best and momma tori shakes some shit up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did you guys know there's a podfic of this story? did you know it's done by someone who absolutely *nails* red's crazy little internal dialogue? because you should go [ check it out ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7506859%22). huge thanks again to godoflaundrybaskets. ur the best. 
> 
> I've gotten a bit of feedback that the names are getting a bit confusing--from here on out, sans=red and Sans=blue. I really, really don't dig the idea of changing either of their names , so I hope that helps clear up a little of the confusion!
> 
> as always, thank you to everyone who's left me feedback! you're a champ. 
> 
> got anything you want written? doodled? come yell at me at [ my SFW blog ](http://vstheworld.tumblr.com/) or [ my NSFW blog ](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com/).

He actually lasted way longer than Sans would have initially guessed.   
  
He and Papyrus hadn't been crass enough to make bets or anything, but he'd been giving it _maybe_ ten minutes before the other sans fled upstairs. Watching his fidgeting increase exponentially with every new addition to the party only makes him more certain.  
  
Undyne gets tugging at the hoodie strings, his claws tapping staccato against the metal aglets as he worries them between thumb and forefinger. Alphys gets a vague kind of rocking up onto the balls of his malformed feet. By the time Muffet shows, armed with four bottles of Papyrus's favorite honey whiskey, he's sweating again, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his hoodie and looks like he might be dangerously close to losing what little of his lunch he had choked down.  
  
He tries, though. He tries so hard it's nearly painful to watch, especially when Undyne manages to corner him in the kitchen with what she probably thinks are gentle questions. The very first thing out of her mouth is, somewhat predictably, “So...you have a tail.”  
  
She says it with all the delicacy of a baseball bat to the skull, all her teeth on cheery, blinding display she's so excited. sans goes deathly still, hand still frozen, outstretched, in the middle of reaching for his beer. She doesn't seem to notice, just barrels on with,“What's, uh, what's up with that? Sans—our Sans, sorry—I mean, he looks normal.” She catches _that_ immediately, at least. Shewinces. “Shit, sorry, I—not _normal_ , you know what I meant.”  
  
His doppelgänger actually lets out a soft little chuckle at that. Sans allows himself a brief pang of jealousy, only for a second. _He's_ certainly never managed to coax anything close to that out of the guy, but Undyne's somehow managed it within ten minutes of knowing him.   
  
“no, i know,” he says, which is...it's strange, the way his voice doesn't shake, the way he almost-but-not-quite makes eye contact with her. “i wish i knew why. just made different, i guess.” He shrugs and snags his beer from the counter. “i mean, there's...not much need for him to look threatening here, right? maybe his Gaster thought—”   
  
Undyne makes a noise like she's been stabbed. “His _what_ ,” she chokes, barely audible from the living room.   
  
Sans frowns. His twin doesn't flinch, exactly, but he shrinks down into the ratty fur lining his hood just a little, hunches his shoulders up a bit, defensive. “Gaster...?”  
  
“Don't say the name!” she hisses. One of Undyne's pink-nailed hands winds into her hair, tugging absently at a fistful. she doesn't seem to have even noticed she's doing it. He's _never_ heard her sound like that, her voice low and urgent and...it's something about him, isn't it, but he has no idea who she's talking about, he's never heard that name in his life—  
  
(but that's not quite right, is it? none of this is quite _right_.)  
  
Then she does the strangest thing—she coaxes her hands into several quick, jerky little shapes that make no sense to Sans, but are clearly aimed in his twin's direction. The other sans blinks and she repeats the pattern once, slower. She visibly pales when the he responds with several sharp gestures of his own.  
  
Alphys, with all of her usual impeccable timing, chooses that precise moment to shove her spiney head underneath Undyne's elbow, forcing her girlfriend's arm to drop around her shoulders. “Hey nerds,” she says brightly. _Loudly_. “Why's it look so dang serious over here? This is supposed to be a party!”  
  
And there he goes again, eyelights dropping automatically to the floor. The stutter's back in full force when he mumbles “s-sorry,” in the general direction of his own feet and he's curled into his coat best he can. All the chill and ease he'd displayed with Undyne is nowhere to be seen now; he even shifts minutely back from Alphys, which is ridiculous on so many levels that Sans doesn't even know where to start.  
  
He's...well, he's _scared_ of her. For Undyne's sake, though (or maybe Papyrus's) he stays mostly rooted in place as Alphys completely fails to read the room, demands to know if he likes anime, and then subsequently attempts to explain the entire convoluted plot of _Kitty Mecha Mayhem Force Go!_ at both record speed and volume. He even lets her punch him affectionately on the shoulder, though his eyelights flicker dangerously when she makes contact, and he doesn't protest at all when she presses a red plastic cup into his hand with the reassurance of “This'll calm you down, _promise_.”  
  
Sans doesn't think he'd ever describe a drunk Alphys as _calm_ , but his doppelgänger downs the cup's contents obediently enough, though he takes these weird, measured sips, like a kid choking down medicine.   
  
Sans really thinks that's going to be the worst of it, the way he kind of shrinks down around Alphys. He seems...wary of Muffet, maybe, but friendly enough when she asks after his injured leg, and he seems happy to sit at Papyrus's feet—always maintaining a careful distance from him and Muffet both—to watch them play some stupid racing video game. She wins every time, but it's possibly because she's got six hands controlling three separate characters, and Papyrus keeps putting his controller down mid-race to get another drink.  
  
That's before Toriel decides to put in her token royal appearance, of course.  
  
To her immense credit, she _does_ try to warn him she's coming, her footsteps as she approaches the newcomer much louder than soft pawpads would normally dictate. She even clears her throat when she's four feet out or so, a sweet, warm smile on her face, butterscotch-cinnamon pie held out in front of her like a peace offering.  
  
She's significantly dressed down for the occasion, just a long, drapey sort of lavender dress and a thin gold circlet perched daintily between her horns. She can't do much about the fact that she dwarfs sans, especially now that he's shrunk so far into his hoodie that he seems to be in danger of disappearing into it entirely, but she hunches apologetically and holds one massive paw out to him. She smiles, though Sans thinks she might not realize exactly how many sharp teeth are displayed in that particular gesture.  
  
“Hello,” she says gently and the other sans jerks like he's been struck at the sound. She tilts her head a few degrees at that, brow wrinkling, but carries on valiantly anyways. “It's lovely to meet you! My name is Toriel. Well, technically it's _Queen_ Toriel, but titles are so archaic, don't you think? I much prefer to just be called by name, if you don't mind.”  
  
The other sans does not answer. The other sans doesn't even appear to be breathing, actually, his eye sockets gone huge and blank and black. Toriel frowns and drops her arm back down to her side. “Are...are you alright, friend? You look quite pale...”  
  
She takes only half a step towards him, but it's apparently enough to startle him out of stillness. He skitters back a few steps, claws fumbling on the tile, until his back hits the solid edge of the counter. His left eye stutters to life, a weird, pulsing crimson light that leaks through the cracks around the socket like blood on dirty snow.   
  
(Sans chooses not to think about the implications of the still-dim right socket at that very moment, thanks.)  
  
He fully expected the other sans to make a break for their shared bedroom. He seems to like that one best, as far as Sans can tell, especially with all the lights turned off, though he still staunchly refuses to lie properly in the bed. Plus, Papyrus has been (weirdly) locking his own bedroom door for several days now, so it's not like his twin is exactly flush with options.  
  
He makes no move towards the stairs, though, doesn't even look at them. He doesn't try to push past Toriel, or make it out of the living room. Instead, the other sans chokes out “oh, hey, _fuck you,_ ” and just...vanishes in a burst of pink light accompanied by a soft _pop_.  
  
For a moment, there's silence punctuated only by the electronic screech of digital cars meeting digital walls.   
  
“Uh,” Sans hears himself say distantly, punctuating it with a weird, stupid little giggle that he loathes the second it slips past his teeth, “for the record, just in case anyone's curious, _I_ can't do that.”  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh, not a lot, surprisingly. this chapter's more sad than horrifying. 
> 
> also, would anyone be interested in a side story of Why Sans Doesn't Like Toriel? 
> 
> ...i'm gonna write it anyways probably.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> blue makes a mistake and red handles it well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys
> 
> you guys are so goddamn sweet. your feedback gives me life i s2g you are all so precious yes you are
> 
> i'm also in the process of moving, so, uh....my apologies if updates are slow for a little bit here. 
> 
>  
> 
> ALSO THIS STORY WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY AND IT JUST ISN'T SO UH ALSO I AM SORRY FOR THAT.
> 
> questions/comments/concerns at [NSFW](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com) // [ SFW ](http://vstheworld.tumblr.com)

“Look, I know _exactly_ where he's gonna go. I'll get him, you stay here and try to enjoy your party. Get embarrassingly drunk. Smoke a bowl. Be a good host.” He pauses, and leans around his brother to glare into the living room behind him. “And stop Alphys from putting that anime on, because I am ninety-nine percent sure it's porn.”  
  
“Sans...” Papyrus is making _that_ face at him, the pinched, concerned kind of look he gets whenever Sans is sick, or hurt, or in danger of losing even a fraction of that fragile single HP. He knows it comes from a good place, okay, he knows that's an instinct practically coded into his big brother, but he also knows nothing makes the shiver in his doppelgänger's voice worse than having Papyrus around.  
  
“You scare him,” Sans says, gently as he can manage. He folds his arms over his chest. “You know that, right?”  
  
Predictably, Papyrus's dim eyelights flick off to the left, just a hair. His jaw tightens. “Do I?”  
  
Sans pats his brother on the shoulder. “I'll call you if I need you, okay? Is that fair? This is my _job_ , Pap.”  
  
Papyrus is stubborn on his best days, and if this were anyone else, he would probably argue. He looks like he still wants to.   
  
But if his brother has a single soft spot, it's the way Sans blinks huge, trembling eyelights at him when he's really determined to get his way. It's a dirty trick and Sans knows it, which is why he tries to save it for special occasions. He's pretty sure this counts.  
  
Papyrus caves within ten seconds, browbone wrinkling into a half-joking scowl. “Fine,” he grumbles. “Thirty minutes, and then I'm sending Alphys after you. If he so much as _touches_ you—” Papyrus bites off whatever he'd been about to say with an exasperated shake of his head. “Just. Be careful, okay? He's...he's _really_ unstable.”  
  
_So are you_ , Sans half wants to point out, but he's not a cruel monster by nature. He can imagine all too well the way Pap's face would crumple at the accusation. There's some element of self-flagellation to the way his brother and his doppelgänger persist in their weird, avoidant dance, he knows it, but they're both so irritatingly lockjawed about it that he can't say he really _gets_ it.   
  
“I'll be careful,” he says instead. Pap doesn't look happy about it, but he curls his shoulders into an affected slouch and shoves his hands into his hoodie pockets.   
  
“I'm gonna drink all your beer if you're not back on time, I hope you know.” He slumps against the doorframe and chews the end of his unlit cigarette.  
  
Sans laughs. “Wouldn't expect anything else, man.”   
  
He flicks his brother a lazy salute, which Papyrus returns, and vanishes into the the snowdrifts.  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
There was a fifty-fifty shot here of Sans actually getting his twin's hideout right.   
  
Well, okay, no, that's not remotely mathematically sound—there's a finite, if enormous number of places sans could choose as a hiding place. He's small and desperate and probably unnervingly good at this game, but there's only two places that Sans himself has ever snuck off to, those rare days when he finds himself in need of a quiet moment on his own, before he could manage facing his brother with a believable smile plastered on his face.   
  
They're still the same monster on some fundamental level, right? Maybe he's banking too much on that similarity, maybe he should be heading in the opposite direction and considering Pap's favored hideout instead—on the bridge above the falls, where he can drown out his thoughts with the roar of the water—but there's this weird, deep certainty in the center of his soul that his twin wouldn't like the noise. He'd seek out somewhere quiet and distant, somewhere he could easily go unnoticed.  
  
He'd look for somewhere to disappear.  
  
It takes some time to spot him, considering he's dressed entirely in black, and Waterfall is much too dark for Sans's terrible vision. He swears under his breath as his foot catches for approximately the six thousandth time on a rock in his path. He wishes, not for the first time, that he'd thought far ahead enough to remember his glasses.  
  
He had been banking on the echo flowers to be of some use, honestly, even if all they offered him was the distant rattling of frightened bones, but each blossom remains eerily silent as Sans passes. Either he's entirely off, or his twin didn't made a single sound coming through here, which, considering his spectacular disappearance from their living room, seems entirely possible.   
  
“sans?” he calls and immediately, the flowers nearby swivel towards him, blossoms bobbing heavy on their stalks.   
  
“sans?” they whisper back, the word fracturing into hundreds of individual voices, all overlapping and flowing over one another. “sans? sans? sans?”  
  
He waits for a moment, poised nearly on tiptoe, hoping to catch anything over their soft murmuring, but the cavern is otherwise still. He wasn't expecting his twin to volunteer his location or anything but he thought there might have been _some_ audible reaction.  
  
...except if he's hidden somewhere nearby Sans has just given him a head start. He knows someone's here. He knows someone is looking for him.  
  
Shit.   
  
Maybe he should have brought someone along? Not Papyrus, obviously, because the smell of black-and-milds is only marginally less of a giveaway than Sans's brilliant idea to try calling for him like a dog, but maybe Alphys?   
  
No. Undyne would have made more sense. He liked Undyne. He didn't seem petrified of her, anyways—he smiled at her without dropping his eyelights to his own feet and he didn't so much as flinch when she inadvertently stepped into his personal space, which was the closest to relaxed that Sans had ever seen him. He...knew whatever strange hand-language she'd been speaking, too. Sans's brow wrinkles as he tries to remember the gestures.  
  
There's no way they know each other. How could they? The other sans hasn't been out of their sight since he woke up, and before that, Muffet had said she was alone in the alley when she found him. And Muffet had even, at Sans's request, kept quiet about her discovery. Although Sans can't say he knows her well enough to trust her, exactly, Papyrus has been drinking himself blind in her establishment for years. He's at ease enough in her presence to fall asleep at the bar occasionally, which is practically a glowing endorsement where his brother is concerned.  
  
But the other sans had taken to Undyne in less than ten minutes, like he'd known her all his life, so...they had something in common, some thread stitched between here and whatever bruising reality had spat his twin onto their metaphorical doorstep.  
  
What was it she'd said in the kitchen? It was a name, he's fairly certain, two syllables that caught in the back of his throat and made something behind his left socket itch, but he can't remember the actual word for the life of him. He thinks maybe it started with a “g” but otherwise it's just static and this sticky, sick kind of feeling in his mouth like he's nervous, like he's halfway through his workday and only just remembered he might have left the oven on at home.  
  
Sans normally has an _excellent_ memory. This new blank spot is...unsettling, to say the least.  
  
The chorus of his own name surrounding him isn't helping much either.  
  
“Shut up,” he grumbles at the nearest flower and it shivers its petals at him happily.   
  
“Shut up,” it offers back as its neighbors take up the chant.   
  
Sans scowls at it. No _way_ he sounds that petulant. “Asshole,” he whispers at it, with a kind of vicious pleasure and that actually wrenches a soft laugh out of what most definitely is _not_ an echo flower.  
  
If he crouches down, he can just make out the line of his twin's ulna, glowing a faint, dusky blue in the flower-light. The rest of him is nearly obscured by the pitch-black leaves, his hood tugged up over his skull. If he's shaking, it's not loudly enough for Sans to hear.  
  
“Hey,” he says softly, something like relief washing over him.“You okay in there, bud?”  
  
The other sans doesn't move at all. The leaves don't so much as rustle. There's only a soft wheeze, like he's trying to catch his breath, but it's several long moments before, finally:   
  
“y-yeah. fine.”  
  
“Man,” Sans says. “That was almost convincing. You gonna come out, or am I coming in?”  
  
Another pause. When his doppelgänger speaks, his voice is slow, measured, as though he's holding off his stammer by sheer force of will. “i, uh, i may have overdone it a tiny bit. with the—the teleporting.”  
  
Sans pushes his way through the massive plants and finds his twin curled up, knees to his chest, in a small clearing between four of the larger flowers. He looks up at Sans, his eye sockets empty and black. He's still smiling, of course, because it's not like he really has another option, but his claws are sunk deep enough into his sleeves that he's torn tiny holes in the fabric.  
  
“i realize,” he says, “that i probably overreacted.” His words are so bland, so even, so very flat that for the first time Sans actually registers a faint smoker's rasp beneath, not unlike his brother's, “i'm sorry. for embarrassing you.”  
  
Sans blinks. That's...not exactly what he'd been expecting. “Uh.”  
  
“she was trying to give me food,” his twin says and here, he ducks his head towards his chest just a hair, just enough that he'd have broken eye contact, if they'd been making it in the first place. He chuckles. His knuckles flex, claws biting deeper into his own humeri. “she...she was being nice, wasn't she?”  
  
“She's always nice,” Sans replies immediately and...it's true, mostly, for a given value of _nice_. He tries very hard not to think of the single room in the castle that Alphys had warned him early on never to enter. “She wasn't trying to scare you.”  
  
“yeah.” He tips his head very slightly in acknowledgement of the point but makes no move to stand. “i probably scared _her_ , huh.”   
  
“A little.” Sans plops himself down in the grass just close enough to his twin that their elbows could brush, if only the other didn't hold himself so carefully away, like he was sure he had some disease he might pass on if they happened to touch. “she's an adult, she'll get over it.” He reaches out _very_ carefully, _very_ slowly, giving the other sans plenty of time to move away if he didn't feel like welcoming the contact.  
  
His twin allows him to lay one hand on his knee, though, with no protest at all, which is...something, at least. He keeps his empty gaze fixed on that hand. When Sans squeezes his femur reassuringly, he only shivers.  
  
“yeah?” he mumbles. His voice is tiny, unsteady, but the word itself is clear as a bell. He's sweating again. “yeah, okay, can i—my pills—?”   
  
“Oh! Of course, here, let me—” Sans rifles through his exterior pockets for the little case with his free hand. “I'm so sorry, it's been hours hasn't it? I just figured, you were drinking—hah!” He pulls the silver box out and flips it open, plucks out a familiar white pill. “Here you go, but I didn't think to bring any water...”  
  
His twin has closed his eye sockets but one hand is held out, palm-up, for Sans to deposit the thing into. “i don't, i don't need water, that's fine. can i—”  
  
Whatever he'd been about to ask seems to choke him for a moment, his jaw flexing as though he's trying to speak but can't manage to produce any sound. He coughs. Tries again. “c-can i have two? please?”  
  
Sans isn't an idiot. He knows it's worrying, that his counterpart carries around a veritable rainbow of unmarked medication in his coat pocket.   
  
Pap had actually confiscated several interesting-looking pills with tiny smiley faces stamped into them before Sans even got a chance to examine them closely, so he figures there's probably a heavy recreational aspect to the collection. And he knows what these painkillers do to him on half that dose— they leave him fucked-out and bleary, unfocused, difficult to get straight answers out of for at least a few hours.   
  
But he supposes it might make it easier to struggle through whatever other social contact he's going to be asked to participate in tonight. God knows he looks like he could use the break.  
  
So Sans isn't _enabling_ , exactly, it's just that his doppelgänger looks so shaken at the thought of going back to the house, so hunched up and miserable and he's damp, kind of, from sweat and the ever-present mist rolling off the waterfalls that give this place its name. The dingy fur lining his hood reeks of wet dog. He doesn't seem terribly bothered by it.  
  
It's _mercy_ , Sans tells himself as he drops another pill into his twin's trembling hand. It'll calm him down enough to get through the night and hopefully some sleep will do him good, so they can tackle...whatever this is in the morning. There's no sense in trying now. He looks strung-out as it is, absolutely exhausted, and in some very real and present danger of collapsing where he sits.   
  
This is no different than any time Sans lies awake in bed until two or three in the morning, waiting for the telltale fumbling with the front lock that means Papyrus has made it home safe.   
  
He almost manages to convince himself of that. Almost.   
  
He pushes himself to his feet as the the other sans pops the pills into his mouth. He watches, fascinated, as his counterpart _chews_ them, grinds them between his fangs and licks up the residue eagerly with his pierced tongue, seemingly unbothered by the bitter taste.   
  
_Gross_.   
  
Sans glances quickly down at his phone to see if they have enough time to sit for a few moments and wait for the pills to kick in before Papyrus sends out the search party. Sixteen minutes left, which was more than enough time to walk back, assuming the painkillers didn't knock the other sans out entirely. He lifts his head, opens his mouth to ask _hey man, what are the odds you're about to pass out on me—_  
  
—and that's about the point Sans realizes he must've missed something pretty significant here, because his doppelgänger hasn't stood up at all.   
  
In fact, he's on his knees now, way too close to Sans, already stripped of his jacket and halfway through the process of tugging his faded t-shirt over his head.  
  
(There are cigarette burns in the t-shirt and faint corresponding marks along his ribs. Sans kinda wants to throw up because he's not sure how he hadn't noticed them before.)  
  
When he lifts his head to look up at Sans his eyelights are dilated enough that they're nearly as big as Sans's own. They're still that stuttering dull pink, though, flickering and unfamiliar. He's smiling almost brightly as he lifts shaking claws to undo the buckle of Sans's belt.  
  
Yeah. He definitely missed something here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> recreational drug use, dubious consent, red gets weird with everyone, blue swears and possibly has been going about this somewhat incorrectly


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *actually* red vs blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a huge, huge thank you to everyone who's had anything to say about this fic. you guys continue to amaze me and i'm so happy you'te enjoying this. this is the first fandom community i've been an actual part of, and it's unspeakably awesome.
> 
> shoutout to godoflaundrybaskets, who lends a lovely voice to this batshit rambling [here](https://godoflaundrybaskets.net/2016/07/17/little-blue-pills-chapter-1/), to 0netype, who is a shameless enabler of all my bad ideas, and to mistressminako, who's been so sweet and indulgent about this fantastic impromptu RP session we've somehow struck up! I haven't RP'd in years and it's SO MUCH FUN.
> 
> As always, please see end notes because, uh, we gettin' nasty now.

  
His doppelgänger doesn't freak the way Papyrus had, exactly.  
  
Oh, he goes rigid and still under sans's hands. His eyelights are thin slits fixed somewhere in the middle distance as he manages to push vaguely at sans's shoulders, granted, but he doesn't panic and lash out the way his brother had. The other Sans doesn't stammer out any kind of fractured protest or try to grab at him even, which is a definite improvement over the tiny bruises Papyrus's terrified grip had smudged into his jawbone.  
  
He also doesn't really _stop_ sans, which seems like it should sort of be the sticking point here.  
  
Instead, he cups one hand around the back of sans's skull—carefully, still, even with sans on his knees, prone, head bowed and about as nonthreatening as he can manage, he's so fucking _careful—_ and _h_ e nearly caresses it, really, wide, slow sweeps of his thumb that sans only just manages not to press into.  
  
“Hey there, buddy, what are you—” He cuts himself off to suck in a shuddery little breath as sans promptly hooks his zipper between two sharp teeth and tugs it down.  
  
“I don't suppose you, uh, you wanna to talk about this...?” he grinds out, his voice wavering, panicky, nearly half an octave higher than usual. And he's right on with that one, isn't he, hit the mark on the very first fucking shot, even if sans is having a hard time making out the individual words past the numb static filling his skull.  
  
sans does not want to talk about this. sans does not want to talk about _anything_ , thank you very much, because he's always been absolute shit at talking. What the hell is he supposed to say, anyways?  
  
He wants to snap at his stupid, bright-eyed little twin to shut his grinning mouth, to stop touching sans like he's something fragile. He wants to tell the kid to stop _looking_ at him like that, eyelights blurry and sad and he wants to tell him that those fingers on his skull better bite in hard enough to leave a proper mark because none of this counts for _dick_ otherwise.  
  
He opens his mouth but his twin beats him to the punch, his free hand nudging up under sans's jawbone. He tips his head up so that they make some approximation of eye contact. Asks, awfully, _inconceivably_ , “sans...do you _want_ to do this?”  
  
None of what he wants really coincides at all with what's happening in front of him, though, so he can't see why that matters much right now. Mostly, sans wants to shut his insistent brain off for whatever brief period of time possible.  
  
He wants, _fuck_ , he just wants it to shut up, he wants a break, he wants someone else to take the wheel for ten minutes so he can catch his goddamn breath, _but_. He's seen his doppelgänger's world now. He's met his friends, his mocking echo of sans's own brother, and he knows there is exactly no way he can explain this that will make any sense to the kid.  
  
So he nods instead. Sure. Why the hell not.  
  
(Four nights here, he hasn't caught Papyrus sneaking into Sans's bedroom _once_ , not even when he falls asleep on watch. Not even when Papyrus drinks himself unconscious on the couch. So that...of course that's different too. Of fucking _course_ it is.  
  
There are no words that will at all justify the bitter welling of jealousy in his throat.)  
  
“y-yeah. yeah, 'course i wanna—”  
  
“ _ **I don't believe you**_.”  
  
sans, very much in spite of his better judgement and every instinct to the contrary, stops dead.  
  
“I don't think you wanna do _anything_ with me,” Sans continues, quieter, brow furrowed down at him and okay, sure. He gets it now. He gets why Papyrus gags him most of the time. He totally, absolutely, completely understands because when his doppelgänger follows that with, “I, I think you _have_ to,” sans's soul clenches so abruptly, so sharply and painfully that he actually makes a tiny little sound he's never heard himself make before in his life.  
  
He'd have happily taken the back of his twin's hand instead, if they were still playing by any rules that made sense. He...doesn't suppose the other Sans would appreciate the offer.  
  
“But look, man,” the kid is saying as sans blinks slow and stupid up at him, “I'm telling you, you _don't_ have to. I don't _want_ you to. I'm telling you _no_ , okay, and that's...that's not your fault, right? You know that?”  
  
And that's—  
  
That—  
  
_—what_.  
  
He moves before he realizes what's happening. He's got the other sans by the right tibia and he's _pulling_ , he's dragging the kid down to the pitch-black grass without actually considering next steps at all, his whole field of vision white with rage.  
  
The guy makes impact with a dull _thump_ and a bitten-off little cry, his forearms slamming into the earth in an impressively quick attempt to cushion his fall. He's faster than sans would have expected, too—he only takes a second to wrench air back into his not-lungs before he's twisting away, kicking out with one booted foot as sans scrabbles to grab his wristbones.  
  
“the fuck d'you mean, _no?_ ” sans snarls. It doesn't escape his notice that the other Sans doesn't aim for anything like a strategic blow when he strikes—he goes for the very center of sans's sternum instead, the absolute widest point of impact he can reach. He's actually actively trying _not_ to hurt sans and that infuriates him more than anything, that tacit reluctance to fight with any real intent.  
  
sans growls, this low, thick rumble from somewhere deep inside his ribcage. He clambers on top of his twin and it takes him a long moment to register that the horrible ragged panting filling his skull is actually rattling out from between his own teeth.  
  
It's _his_ breath. He sounds winded, wrecked, like he's been running a marathon. He chuckles at the mental image when— _shit_ , there it is again, it's like something in his chest kicks and he's glitching out again, he's stuck in this loop, because he's...not supposed to still be laughing, probably.  
  
But he laughs and he laughs and he laughs and _that_ doesn't come out right either, if the look on the other Sans's face is any indication. Those stupid starry eyelights are tiny, terrified, shrunk deep to the back of his sockets as he writhes under sans and whimpers, “The fuck kinda question is _that_?? Let me up, c'mon, man. This isn't funny!”  
  
“see now, that's where you're wrong,” sans rasps, wrapping his fingerbones around his doppelgänger's wrists and slamming them to the pitch-black grass, hard. It earns him another pained yelp and he shoves his face way too close to his counterpart's, lets his left eye sputter to wavering, oil-slick life. He snickers nastily when the kid cringes back. “this is _**h i l a r i o u s**_.”  
  
He...doesn't actually have any idea what he's doing here. He knows the script well enough to have a general idea of how the second act's supposed to go, but he's been cast in completely the wrong part this time around. He can't figure out what his next line is supposed to be. He doesn't have a clue what he's supposed to do now that he has the other Sans's slight weight pinned under his own except hold him and bare his teeth down at the twisted, familiar little face.  
  
He could hate him, he realizes suddenly and without any real warning, this vicious bitter swell on his tongue as he stares down into at those wet, frightened eye sockets. He could—he could _loathe_ Sans in that moment, those frightened noises he's making in the back of his throat like a scared puppy, the way he squirms pitifully against the hold on his wrists, head tipped back, throat exposed, like he hasn't even considered actually fighting.  
  
Like sans isn't a real threat to him.  
  
When he bites into the thick curve of his twin's vertebrae, when he drags his teeth heavy down the smooth line of his clavicle, it feels just like putting his fist through a wall. A familiar, violent joy catches sharp in his chest right where Sans had kicked him.  
  
“i'm gonna _tear you apart_ ,” he snarls. His sunny little doppelgänger's pupils vanish into the black holes of his eye sockets at that, grin wrenching itself into something distinctly uncomfortable as sans nudges one femur between his kicking legs. He presses a kneecap firmly to his twin's pubis with _maybe_ a little too much force.  
  
“i wouldn't move much,” he advises and the other Sans goes abruptly still, eye sockets scrunched up in horror. This close, sans can see that there's genuinely not a _single_ crack on the smooth planes of his skull, no telltale marks around his throat. His teeth are so fucking straight it looks like they were drawn on with a ruler.  
  
sans wants to smash every single one of them.  
  
That...might be the pills talking, maybe, might be the sticky thing uncoiling in his chest, an awful burr of arousal at the memory of his brother's fingers in his mouth, prying his jaw open, pinning down his tongue, claws locking around a badly-cracked canine and then he just, he just fuckin' _pulls_ and he _twists—_  
  
The kid smells like laundry detergent and cinnamon. He's trembling frantically in the hold now, he's whimpering, “sans, please—” like this is the worst goddamn thing that's ever happened to him.  
  
It probably is. His tiny hands—white, slender bones, no heavy ridge of scarring over the knuckles where they've met brick and bone and thick muscle countless times before, no shaky angles where they've bent and split and broken—are open wide, fingers spread in an apparent plea. A peace offering, maybe.  
  
He's _pathetic_.  
  
“ _Sans, please_ ,” he parrots back, singsong and mocking. “fuck, kid, what're you whining about? i ain't even touched you yet.”  
  
His knee presses _in_ just a little bit then, just enough to hear the ragged, breathy groan his doppelgänger lets slip between his teeth. The other Sans actually looks surprised at the sound himself, eyelights flickering into brief, panicky existence for a second before they gutter out again. His cheekbones burn a bright, nearly neon blue, standing out stark against the matte black nothing of the echo flowers at his back.  
  
It's a pretty color, almost, goes nicely with the pearl-white of his skull, and that half-thought is about all the time he gets to admire it. There's a soft, familiar _ting!_ and sans suddenly finds himself seized around the ribcage, dragged bodily back, slammed against a nearby rock face a good ten feet from his twin's prone body.  
  
He doesn't even hit hard enough to knock the wind out of him, but the magic crushes down on his sternum like a steel beam anyways, rigid, constant, and just as unyielding. He can't move, can't fight, can't pull himself out of the hold for anything and he hates _nothing_ like he hates being trapped. He thrashes against it, tail snapping hard against the ground in futile, desperate effort to free himself.  
  
Across the clearing, the other Sans has got shakily to his feet now, one glowing hand held out in sans's direction, clenched in a tiny, grim little fist like he's got the reins on some wild animal wound between his fingers. Considering the way his magic is slowly pressing the breath out of his ribcage, sans guesses the comparison probably isn't far off.  
  
He throws his skull back against the rock hard as he can with a satisfying _crunch_ of cracking bone, a blistering, swelling flare of pain, and spits out a furious “what the fuck are you _doing_?”  
  
“ _Helping_ _you_ , asshole,” the other Sans hisses. “And it would be a whole hell of a lot easier if you'd just stop doing shit like this!”  
  
“I don't—”  
  
“Ohhhhhhmygod, if the next words out of your mouth are 'I don't need help,' I swear—” He makes a violent little throttling motion with one hand. “Just. Shut up. Shut up, and _don't touch me_.”  
  
It's a clear enough order. sans nods frantically, obediently, but the iron grip of his doppelganger's magic doesn't falter once their whole walk home. He doesn't say a word.  
  
Hell, he doesn't even _look_ at sans, which is...somehow not actually an improvement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> red hates himself and takes it out on blue, noncon, dubcon, consent is somehow a difficult concept for sans


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> everything gets worse ft. Alphys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, thank you so much to everyone who engages with this mess. you're angels.
> 
> on a less fun note, real stuff is kind of kicking my ass right now so I'm really sorry if the updates get a bit slower here for a while.

“So here's the thing,” Papyrus says.

sans's head jerks up, his single functioning eyelight fixed furious and crimson on the back of his not-brother's skull. He can barely see it over the unfamiliar slump of his shoulders, clouded as his vision is by a blue haze of smoke. Papyrus doesn't bother turning around.

It's the first thing he's said since he dropped into the single straight-backed wood chair, parked dead in the middle of the shed without so much as looking at sans, who'd bundled himself into the closest available corner. sans had actually almost started to nod off at one point, only snapped back to irritated consciousness by the incessant _schick_  of Papyrus's lighter as he idly flicked it open and closed. He chain-smoked his way though four consecutive cigarettes before he so much as made another sound and even then, it was only to clear his throat.

He drops his latest victim to the shed floor and stubs the cherry out with the toe of one scruffy sneaker. Long fingerbones pluck another from the crumpled pack, but this one, he rolls between thumb and forefinger instead of immediately sticking it between his teeth. “You and I both know if you wanted to be gone, you would be.”

sans assumes he's referring to the disappearing act he'd done mid-party and nods his head mutely before he remembers Papyrus can't see him. “uh, y-yeah,” he manages, barely, to choke out.

It's a blatant goddamn lie. His voice shakes all the time anyways, though, so he's not totally sure Papyrus catches it.

( _His_ Papyrus would have.)

He'd tried. He had tried so fucking hard to vanish again the second his doppelgänger had slammed the heavy door shut.

That had been immediately preceded with a crushing hug from the other Sans, arms wrapping around him from behind, stupid little face pressing into the shaking line of sans's scapula. sans had frozen, stock-still in his twin's arms, but the guy gave no sign he'd noticed, just nuzzled against him for several long, uncomfortable moments before sans was shoved unceremoniously into the shed by the magic tether still wound around his ribcage.

That all would have been bizarre enough, but it was also accompanied by the loud, bewildering proclamation of “I'm not mad at you— I just _can't be around you right now_!”

sans's busted magic had sparked and spat at him the instant he'd tried to teleport, though. It ripped this awful, ice-pick agony through his right eye socket, blinding red pain that brought him down to his knees again, wheezing for breath, so.

He didn't try a second time.

The other Sans certainly _seemed_  mad, he'd thought, as he listened to the _thunk_ of the deadbolt sliding home, the rattling _clink_ of keys being shoved back into a pocket. sans hadn't wasted any time in hauling himself unsteadily to his feet, one hand clapped over his aching eye, and making a run at the door with his shoulder.

It held, of course. Closer inspection revealed heavy iron fittings around the door reinforcing the scarred wood. Apparently his doppelgänger wasn't quite as naive as he seemed.

“S'why Sans didn't want to cuff you,” Papyrus continues, snapping sans effectively back to the present. “I voted for it just on principle, but _hey_.” He shrugs. “He said it was.............a show of good faith. Or somethin'.”

His voice doesn't change at all. It's the same easy, warm humour he delivers his terrible one-liners with, same gentle slur to his consonants he gets every time sans has seen him drunk. He sounds amused, like he's smiling still and that's...that's much worse, somehow.

That's new. That's _unpredictable_.

sans shrinks back into the rough wood behind him, his tail giving a single quick, panicked _thwack_ against the dirt floor before he manages to catch it beneath one foot. “th-thank you,” he chokes out. He's not sure it's loud enough for Papyrus to hear. He's not even sure it's _what_ Papyrus wants to hear.

“You tried to hurt my brother,” Papyrus says in easy response, as coolly as if he were discussing what passes for weather, underground. He tips his head back to glance at sans over his shoulder, single visible eye socket still drooped lazily at half-mast, eyelight a blistering yellow-orange that doesn't match his bland smile in the least.

“You tried to _rape_ my brother,” he says pleasantly, and the stomach sans doesn't have plummets.

sans is curled up into himself so tightly and he flinches so hard in response that he knocks himself in the cheekbone with his own kneecap. He barely feels it. “i—”

“Oh, _please_ ,” Papyrus drawls. His face never shifts from that bored expression but his eyelight flares once, like a log popping in a fireplace, this bright, molten honey color. The cigarette in his fingers snaps in half, a few rogue flakes of tobacco drifting to the floor. “Please. Try to justify what happened out there. This should be good.”

He can't.

There's not a thing he can say, there's not a single explanation that will actually _explain_ anything. He can't tell Papyrus what he was thinking, because he _wasn't_. There's no logic. There's no reason. There's nothing except a bleak black certainty that he has finally crossed a line they won't forgive, which...it was really only a matter of time, anyways. He knew that.

Still.

“i...can't,” he says in this tiny, wavering little voice. He squeezes his eye sockets shut, an awful, heated flush of shame creeping up the back of his neck. “i c-can't, i—” He bites down hard on the tongue he hadn't even realized he'd conjured. It's not remotely enough to slow the way his breath is rattling in his chest now, short, sharp little bursts as he struggles to keep as still and as small as possible. Keeps his head low, closest approximation of nonthreatening he can manage.

If he's being realistic, he doesn't _have_ to answer Papyrus. If he can just choke down the automatic compulsion to obey, he can at least die with whatever pathetic scraps of dignity he has left, instead of descending even further into the shivering, sweating mess he's been since the second he'd blipped out of existence in their kitchen. If he just stays silent, Papyrus will get tired of waiting eventually and then he'll get off his ass and finish this whole stupid goddamn thing the way Muffet should've when she first found sans.

Would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

He isn't looking up, but he can actually _feel_ Papyrus's eyelight fixed on him, a faint heat like he's gotten too close to a lightbulb—although that, paired with the crawling sensation all across the surface of his bones, might mean that it's more in his own head than anything. He takes several deep, shuddering breaths.

“ _Try_ ,” Papyrus snarls. He doesn't sound like he's smiling anymore. “Try really, _really_ hard.”

“wh-why?” It stumbles out of his mouth before he's made any conscious effort to speak, and he doubles down on _that_ unfortunate decision by chasing the question with, “will—will that m-make you feel b-better? g-gonna h-help _him_ sleep at n-night?” He turns his head away and tucks his face into his shoulder best he can, wishing, not for the first time that had the familiar rank fur of his jacket hood to hide in. “h-hate t-to be the one to t-tell you, boss, it—it ain't gonna help.”

“Don't call me that,” Papyrus growls. “Don't you dare—I don't want any part of whatever sick fuckin' relationship you've got with _your_ Papyrus. Leave me the hell out of it.”

It takes sans a second to recognize the hollow bark of a sound that he lets out as a laugh. “relationship...? y-you think what he d-does to me is a r- _relationship_? you n-naive sonuvabitch. y-you h-have     _ **n**_ **_o_**     ** _f_** **_u_** _**c**_ _**k**_ _**i**_ **_n_** **_g_**     **_i_** **_d_** **_e_** **_a_**.”

“I...don't know,” Papyrus says, voice wary now. When sans tips his skull up to look at his brother's counterpart, he's actually looking back, browbone scrunched up, his smarmy, perpetually-grinning mouth twisted into a new and puzzled shape. “Dude, I don't know what else you expected me to get from the time you tried to _blow me in my sleep.”_

sans blinks. “y-you think i, what, i w- _wanted_ to d-do that?” He chuckles meanly. “f-fuck you, man. just, _fuck you_. g-go ahead and g-get it over with. i'm—i'm not o-obligated t-to spill my g-guts to you f-first, dickwad.”

“...get what over with?”

“ _what you brought me out here to do_ ,” sans howls and somehow, he doesn't stumble over the words at all, spits it out with crystal-clear precision that he can barely hear in his own head. His entire skull is filled only with the high whine of adrenaline and the phantom heartbeat throbbing in his metaphorical stomach, but he stays where he is, huddled in the dirt where he fucking belongs.

He's so, so goddamn tired.

 

 

*

 

Alphys doesn't know Papyrus very well, and...it's a little deliberate, if she's being honest.

He seems friendly enough, but she's not the kind of monster who's ever been able to compartmentalize very well. Pleasant as he's always been to her, she has a hard time ignoring the tiny clench of Sans's jaw every one of those several dozen times she's had to help his brother home from Muffet's, slurring these awful, disjointed, depressing things and tripping over his own untied shoelaces the whole time.

Sans always smiles, but she thinks she's getting pretty good at telling them apart. When he looks at Papyrus sometimes, he looks absolutely miserable.

She kind of gets it and...okay, she _really_ hates that she does. Undyne's the love of her life, there's not so much as a doubt on that front, but sometimes—rarely, but often enough—when Undyne's voice cracks and her hands shake and Alphys can practically _see_ her mind spiraling in on itself, when she barricades herself in her lab with bullshit projects, when she smiles sweetly at Alphys and lies through her wicked teeth and says she's fine, really, and isn't Alphys nice for worrying? and then immediately drags her into bed so they don't have to talk about it—

Sometimes, it makes Alphys want to put a fist through the wall. She is not _nice_.

She's a professional, so she doesn't, obviously, but she's also not stupid enough to think her sympathy for Sans is totally unrelated.

Papyrus doesn't mean to hurt his brother, the same way Undyne's doesn't mean to hurt her, but there is the irrevocable fact that he does and he does and he *does* and Sans is too kind for his own goddamn good, so it's not like he'd ever admit it, the stubborn little bastard. Not like he'd ever ask Papyrus to stop drinking himself to death with horrifying enthusiasm.

But she's also never gonna call Undyne on those awful lies, so. Glass houses and all.

She can't help wondering, though, when she comes across Papyrus outside the shed, his blank sockets fixed on what seems to be nothing but a bare patch of snow, cigarette clutched in trembling fingers, if _she's_ really the best person for this job.

“You, uh, want me to get Sans?” she offers and he jumps, like he hadn't even realized that he was no longer alone.

“No,” he husks out. Shakes his head, slow, like he's still waking up from a deep sleep, and makes no move to stick the cigarette in his mouth, despite the fact that it's burned down nearly to the filter now. “No, don't—don't let Sans anywhere near him. Please,” he remembers to tack on at the last moment.

And then, apropos of nothing, out of absolutely fucking nowhere, because they _are not friends,_ he says, in this tiny little voice that abruptly reminds her that this giant lunk of a skeleton is barely two years older than her, “He thought I was gonna kill him.”

He winces, just a little, when the cherry finally sears his fingerbones, dropping the thing into the snow without a second glance. And then, softer, mostly directed to the ground, “Alphys, he—he _begged_ me to do it.”

She doesn't know what she's supposed to say to that, even if it makes her stomach lurch. She has no idea how to comfort her friend's weird older brother in this even weirder situation—this is so much more Undyne's forte than hers, so she just kind of stares at Papyrus as he fishes his nearly-empty pack from his hoodie pocket and fumbles in his jeans pocket for a lighter.

  
He doesn't seem to expect any input from her, fortunately. His eye sockets fix back on that blank patch of snow, and he offers no further details about what happened inside that shed. Says nothing else about his brother's upsetting little echo, who must still be locked inside.

He's silent again for several long moments until finally, “You want one?”

He offers the pack to her. They smoke through the remainder of the cigarettes in companionable quiet.

From inside the shed, the other sans makes no sound at all.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suicide mention, kind of? sans fails to cope, as per usual


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pap and blue finally have a chat
> 
> it goes...well...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short n' sloppy, i'm so sorry--moving is still happening but at least it's something?
> 
> as always an enormous thank you to anyone who's commented, reached out on tumblr, [ drawn ](http://xaira-gabvi.tumblr.com/post/149013696787/honeymustard-kinda-gosh-i-had-fun-drawing-these) or [ recorded](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7506859) or asked questions because you guys
> 
> you guys are incredible. thank you, thank you, thank you and enjoy some ACTUAL PLOT MAYBE WHAT?

By the time Papyrus makes it back to the house, reeking of sweat and nicotine ( but no longer shaking, at the very least) Sans appears to have nearly downed the remaining quarter of Muffet's second-to-last bottle all on his own.  
  
Papyrus steps into the kitchen just in time to watch his little brother throw back the last slug of the sweet whiskey with a casual ease Papyrus doesn't care for at _all_. With a determination he'd admire on literally anyone else, Sans doesn't miss a goddamn beat. He sets the empty bottle down, reaches for the unopened one, cracks the seal with too-practiced fingers and...slides it across the table to Papyrus's empty seat.  
  
“Sit,” he says, low, and it's so rare—he's so careful never to phrase anything like a command, usually, but his eyelights are bleary already, his gaze fixed somewhere absent and faraway. He never drinks hard liquor. Or rarely, anyways, and usually in some horrifically sweet manner, one of those awful, brightly-colored cocktails Alphys is so fond of, not straight from the bottle.  
  
Papyrus drops into the seat obediently before he quite means to. He scowls when he catches himself. Reaches for his cigarettes out of reflex, only to remember he'd wasted the last of them out there by the shed with Alphys, and he doesn't even have a spare pack upstairs, shit, the store'll be closed by now, he's got a little weed left but it's not the _same_ —  
  
“How is he?”  
  
Papyrus blinks at his brother. His eyelights slide down the dirty crest of one cheekbone to snag on a bright purple mark smeared across his collarbone. It's quite obviously a bite, jagged and uneven as his twin's filed teeth. Paired with the sky-blue tank top Sans had changed into, slightly too large for him and hanging half off one shoulder, it looks practically obscene.  
  
He's made no effort to cover it. He's made no effort to cover anything, actually, hasn't even scrubbed the grime from his elbows, like he's trying to prove how very fine he is with this whole situation.  
  
“ _Fuck_ him,” Papyrus snarls and immediately winces at the phrasing—eloquent as a goddamn brick to the face, _christ_.  
  
He busies himself pouring a generous shot into the bottom of the closest available glass. It might not be his. It might not be clean. He doesn't even have words for how little he cares. “No, I mean—Sans, are _you_ okay?”  
  
“I'm fine.” Sans blinks once, twice, and looks up at him, eyelights small but steady. He smiles, but that never means anything. He looks exhausted. “His magic is really busted, Pap. I stopped him when I needed him to stop. I'm okay. He didn't do anything I didn't let him do.”  
  
“Don't say it like that!” Papyrus slams one broad hand down on the tabletop, teeth bared. Sans jerks back a little in surprise. “Don't you—what the _fuck_ , Sans.”  
  
“I gave him too many of his pills, Pap! I thought it would calm him down, I thought it would help, I thought—I didn't think he'd do _that_.”  
  
“Jesus,” Papyrus mutters and takes a long, fortifying pull from his glass. Sighs, and rubs at the crest of his nasal cavity with two fingers. “Okay, look, this is. I—I should have told you this the second it happened.” He scrubs one hand over the back of his skull, sheepish, and lets his eyelights drift down to the tabletop. “That first night? When I dropped him in your room? Yeah, so...he maaaaay have tried something similar with me.”  
  
Sans cocks his head a few degrees to the left. “Was _that_ what freaked you out?” he asks, which is not at _all_ the reaction Papyrus had been expecting. “That's what made you dump him on me?” His browbone furrows in thought when Papyrus nods. “What'd he do?”  
  
“Uh. Seriously?” Had to come up sometime, Papyrus thinks, his cheekbones burning a faint dull orange, but he _really_ wishes that “sometime” had turned out to be months, not days down the line. “He. I woke up and he was trying to—” he makes a handwavey kind of motion towards his own pelvis. “Y'know. With his mouth.”  
  
Sans's whole face scrunches up at that. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Yeah, I think he tried that with me, too. He didn't tackle _you_ , though.”  
  
Papyus shrugs and takes another drink. “He's terrified of me.”  
  
“Can you blame him?” Sans has to lean nearly all the way over the table to reach the bottle, poor guy, and even then he barely catches it with his dull claws to drag it towards him. When Papyrus only stares, Sans sighs and rolls his eyelights in exasperation. “The _collar_ , Pap. I found the collar. If you're gonna hide shit in your pockets, you should probably start doing your own laundry.”  
  
Papyrus winces. “...oh.”  
  
“Yeah, _oh_.” Sans takes a thoughtful sip of the whiskey. Papyrus tries valiantly to ignore the face that he doesn't wrinkle his nose at the taste in the slightest. “He's been sleeping in my bed every night, though, and he's never tried _anything_ like this. He won't even sleep on the pillows with me.” He shakes his head. “I just can't figure out what happened. One minute he was talking, he was...not okay, but okayish for him, you know? And then he just...” He mimes an explosion with his free hand. “I've never seen him lose it like that. What do you think happened with Toriel?”  
  
“Whatever it was, I'm a hundred percent certain you don't want to hear that story.”  
  
“Oh!” Sans's eyelights brighten suddenly, his head snapping up like he'd just had a brilliant idea. “Hey, speaking of, this really weird thing happened with Undyne right before that! She was asking him about his tail, and why he has it and I don't, and he said something about....shit, what was it? That I didn't need to look threatening, that he didn't need to _make_ me look threatening? But I can't—”  
  
And then he just...he _stops_.  
  
His eyelights vanish faster than Papyrus's ever seen before in his life, his whole body gone rigid as a statue in his seat. His fingers tighten around the neck of the whiskey bottle with the faint grating of bone on glass and when he speaks again, it's in a voice Papyrus has never heard before, either.  
  
“ _ **G a s t e r**_ ,” Sans breathes and Papyrus can actually _feel_ his flickering left eye spark to life in panic, breath catching sharply behind his sternum.  
  
How had he...? Papyrus had been so careful, so _fucking_ careful to strip all evidence out of the house, so careful to never, ever say the fucking name. He's going to _murder_ Undyne.  
  
“ ** _W h o   t h e   f u c k   i s   G a s t e r,   P a p y r u s ?   W h o   i s   h e ?   W h y   c a n 't   I , I   c a n ' t —_** ” Sans shudders, his hands abandoning the bottle to curl gently around his skull as though he's trying to ease a headache, tears pooling in his eye sockets at what Papyrus can only assume is crippling pain.  
  
He wouldn't know. He's never done this part.  
  
He's around the table in an instant, though, so fast he's not sure if he walked or teleported. He pulls his baby brother into his arms, wraps around him with a low, “Shhhhhh, hey, you're fine, everything's fine, it'll stop hurting in a minute...”  
  
Sans doesn't fight the hold, initially. He slumps gratefully against Papyrus, pushing his face into the questionably-clean shoulder of Papyrus's hoodie. He seems to be trying to calm his breathing, taking these big, wet gasps of air in a forced rhythm.  
  
That's until Sans catches sight of the inside of his own forearm, at least, blinks down at the neat block lettering like he's never seen it before—which, oh fuck, he _hasn't_ —and screams like he's being gutted.  
  
Understandably, there's not much chance of calming him down after that.  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooooooo are we starting to answer some questions here maybe? welcome to more circling the drain.


	13. interlude: there once was a spider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> just a tiny break from the crippling sad for...more sad? 
> 
> pap talks about his feelings, sorta. mostly, he drinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this just a little interlude, and is set immediately after the scene in chapter five where Papyrus dumps red onto blue's bed and peaces the fuck out. 
> 
> i'm finally done moving, so hopefully actual full regular chapters will be back later this week. don't wanna leave poor blue hanging *too* long.
> 
> as always, you guys are the *best* and an enormous thank you for being so goddamn encouraging about this trash party.

To her immense credit—she thinks, anyways—Muffet only raises two eyebrows when Papyrus pops into existence, shirtless, panting like a winded racehorse, smack-dab in the goddamn center of her bar. He staggers, nearly loses his balance and grabs at the counter just to keep himself upright.  
  
He...well, it's certainly not the worst-off she's seen him, but he's dressed only in basketball shorts and a horrified expression, his cheekbones flushed a deep, unfamiliar orange.  
  
He's shaking. He's _sweating_. She had no idea skeletons could sweat.  
  
“Heya, Paps!” Sonja slurs at him from her usual perch to Muffet's left, absently smoothing her ruffled feathers, like there's any chance at all he might notice, like she hasn't noticed his thousand-yard stare at all. “I think you mighta forgot somethin' at home, buddy. What happened to 'no shirt, no shoes, no service,' huh?”  
  
“Sonja,” Muffet warns, because Papyrus's grip on the bartop is worryingly tight. He doesn't even look at Sonja, doesn't so much as glance her direction in any indication he might have heard her. His good eye is pulsing this weird, uneven tangerine interspersed with flickers of molten gold and Muffet has never seen that before either. “Sit down, honey, you look _awful_.” She reaches for one of his big hands with two of her own, folds her small fingers around his palm.  
  
He squeezes like it's a reflex, tight enough that she swears she can hear her bones creak. She winces. “You want a drink?”  
  
He nods wordlessly, still staring somewhere only vaguely in front of him. One of her free hands reaches for the small shelf of merchandise tucked beneath the cash register and plucks out a lavender sweatshirt in what she dearly hopes is Papyrus's size. She offers It to him. He blinks down at it.  
  
“Put it on. We serve food,” she says apologetically, “but I'll let the shoe thing slide this once. Just, you have a seat and tell me what happened.”  
  
“sans,” he croaks, and looks almost surprised he'd spoken at all. “He—s _ans_.” He shakes his head dazedly and pulls the sweatshirt on, tugging the sleeves down over his palms. It's something he used to do when he was much smaller and shyer, that death grip he's got on the cuffs of the garment.  
  
Muffet's brows wrinkle. She hasn't seen him do that in _years_. “He, I don't—” He shakes his head. He seems to be having trouble breathing.  
  
“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, no, I get it.” Two hands reach for the gin and a lime respectively, a third absently twirling her paring knife like a drumstick. Papyrus drops heavily onto the barstool directly in front of her—not his usual seat, _strange —_ as she pours a measure of the liquor into a large glass that was absolutely originally intended for beer. “You don't have to say anything here, Papyrus.”  
  
She realizes too late that it's the worst possible thing she could have said within earshot of Sonja—she loves nothing like she loves gossip, and it's...more than a little unusual to even see Papyrus and Sans apart for any real length of time, never mind complaining in public about each other. Wisely, though, the bird opts to say nothing, instead tapping a feather against her empty glass in silent request for a refill.  
  
Muffet sets Papyrus's drink in front of him—he throws back half of it in two enormous gulps, forgoing the straw entirely—and sets to work on Sonja's. For a handful of moments, there is only the faint background humming of her rusted old heater, the crackling of logs in the corner fireplace and the clink of the ice in Papyrus's glass as he drains the thing like he's been wandering lost in Hotland for a couple of days.  
  
“It's our....houseguest,” he says carefully, scrubbing the back of one hand over his mouth. “He's been, uh, more difficult than I'd anticipated.” He flicks his eyelights to Sonja, only a faint, familiar trace of his usual good humor in his voice when he offers, “No one you know, I'm afraid.”  
  
She shrugs, clearly affecting an unconcerned air, but Muffet notes the way she sort of leans boneless into the counter. She props her cheek sleepily on one wing, and yawns wide enough that Muffet can see the weird little pseudo-teeth all the way in the back of her beak. Muffet predicts she won't make it to the bottom of her next glass—Sonja's the only regular she sees in here more than Papyrus, and she thinks she can read the bird pretty well, by this point.  
  
She's been going _hard_ tonight, tossing back doubles like they're water. If Muffet's a little heavy-handed with the next drink, well. There was a pretty good chance on any given night of Sonja passing out at the bar of her own accord, to the extent that Muffet has begun to keep a small travel pillow and blanket under one of the more comfortable booths. And it's not like Sonja would ever protest a stronger drink. It's not in her nature.  
  
Muffet tops the drink with three more cherries than the recipe calls for, and staunchly refuses to feel guilty as she slides it across the bartop.  
  
Sonja pops a cherry into her beak and stares straight ahead, clearly pretending to not be listening. She's not a very good actor, because her eyes keep flicking over to Papyrus's hunched form, though they're heavy-lidded and tired.  
  
“I thought that might be the case,” Muffet offers finally. “He didn't look well, when I met him. Have you taken him to an actual healer?”  
  
Papyrus snorts. “I can't even get him out the front door.” Papyrus shakes his head. “I can barely get a whole sentence out of him.”  
  
She crosses two sets of arms over her chest. “And I'm sure you've been approaching him with calm and sensitivity, yes? Being quiet and gentle like I suggested?”  
  
Papyrus sneers. It's a weird look on his skeletal face, the way the line of his mouth kind of pulls _up_ on one side to expose the slightly pointed tips of his incisors. It's sorta threatening, actually, almost looks like he's half-baring his teeth at her like a startled dog, but the way he rolls his eyelights at her like a teenager spoils the effect significantly. “I can't _approach_ him, Muff. He...” and here he stops, shakes his head, and pushes his glass slightly towards her, his shoulders drawing up tightly in a manner she knows far too well, by now. He's drunk himself into miserable oblivion in front of her too many times to count, too many times for her to not learn the little twitches to him. She's very good at her job.  
  
She knows the pattern here. He's a cagey son-of-a-bitch on a good day, but on his bad days, when he snarls up into himself like this...well, it takes about five glasses to get him loose enough to pull anything out of him. Even then it's a process. It reminds her of the time she'd cracked an oven tray and gotten a handful of fiberglass for her troubles, actually, impossible and painful and frustrating as all hell, trying to pull those countless thousands of nearly-invisible shards from her skin.  
  
He won't talk like this and it'll only delay his inevitable breaking point if she pushes, so she just busies herself playing a game on her phone with two hands and mixing him another drink with the remaining four every time she hears the heavy clunk of glass on the bar top. She doesn't ask and he doesn't volunteer.  
  
Muffet's on her second-to-last life anyways when he finally clears his throat, so she doesn't even scowl at him when the sound causes her thumb to jerk on the screen and sends her tiny avatar tumbling over a cliff edge. She just locks the screen and shoves it back into her apron pocket, eyes flicking to Sonja's slumped form to check that she's asleep.  
  
“I think he tried to blow me,” Papyrus says abruptly. Loudly. Looks kind of startled himself, the moment it's out of his mouth.  
  
He just, hell, he comes _right_ out with that one, his single orange-yellow eyelight fixed somewhere in the middle distance between them. Muffet blinks all of her eyes once, twice. Granted, Sonja's been snorting softly in her seat for a quarter of an hour now, but still. _Still_.  
  
“He...?”  
  
“sans.” Papyrus says, and gives this awful, hysterical little giggle, clapping one hand over his mouth. His voice between his fingers is muffled, rough. “The other sans. I don't—is that better? That's not better. He _definitely_ tried to blow me. Fuck, I'm gonna be sick.”  
  
“Trashcan's to your left,” Muffet offers automatically, and plucks the remains of his drink from the bartop between his elbows. “Please aim this time.”  
  
“I'm fine.” He waves one hand dismissively, but the affected calm would be far more believable were his eye not still flickering this jaundiced dull yellow she's never seen before. “Keep those coming though, huh?”  
  
“Technically we're closed,” Muffet points out, but she reaches for the gin again anyways.  
  
He fixes her with a flat glare. “Muff. My brother just tried to suck my dick, d'you think you can do me a solid here?”  
  
“He's not your _brother,_ ” she counters, but she mixes the thing anyways. After a moment's thought she pours a generous measure of the gin into a second glass for herself, though she mixes it with a fresh lavender lemonade from the tiny fridge behind her, rather than the spicy ginger beer Papyrus insists on inflicting upon himself. “What happened?”  
  
He takes the offered drink and waits for her to hop up onto the bartop, folding her legs comfortably beneath her before he answers. “Nothing _happened_ , that's the fucked-up thing. We just...had dinner, watched some TV. I passed out on the couch and I think Sans—my Sans—helped me upstairs. I remember him taking off my sneakers and then...” He shudders. “I don't know. He seemed fine, but I woke up and...there he was. In my bed. Trying to get in my _pants.”_  
  
She tries to picture it, almost in spite of herself. She tries to picture that shivering, shaking little copy of Sans crawling under the covers with Papyrus.  
  
She finds that she can't, not even a tiny bit, mostly because she'd been the one holding him when he'd first laid eyes on Papyrus. She'd seen the bleak terror in his empty eye sockets, heard the horrible sound he'd made deep in his throat. She'd seen him, half-blind with pain and panic, trying to haul himself through the snow just to get _away_ from Papyrus, dragging that awful mangled leg behind him and...what was he so scared Papyrus would _do_ to him, that a nearly-amputated limb paled in comparison?  
  
“That...doesn't make any sense,” she murmurs, and takes a delicate sip of her own drink. “Papyrus, he's terrified of you.”  
  
“Yeah,” Papyrus says, his eyelight firmly fixed on the facing wall, very carefully avoiding her gaze entirely. “Well. I dunno about that, actually.”  
  
From his pocket, he pulls a worn strip of leather, so dirty that she can barely tell it was red once. The fittings are tarnished brass, studded with wicked-looking spikes, their surface pitted and scratched. There is a single round tag dangling from it.  
  
“Is that Doggo's?” she asks. It doesn't look familiar, but she'll be honest—she doesn't pay much attention to the canine unit beyond their orders, since they communicate largely among themselves in soft barks and whines.  
  
He doesn't answer, just hands her the thing instead. She takes it gingerly, two fingers flipping the brass tag around so she can read the lettering in the dim bar lighting.  
  
She reads it, and _immediately_ wishes she hadn't.  
  
“What the hell,” she breathes, all five of her eyes wide. “He was wearing this,” she remembers—she'd been a little preoccupied with the bright swath of blood he'd been dragging in the snow behind himself, but she definitely noticed the collar, even recalls that there had been a short length of broken chain attached. It had been so strange, in those first few seconds she thought it was Sans, because she'd never seen him with anything but a faded blue bandana occasionally tied around his neck, certainly nothing approaching _this_.  
  
Papyrus shrugs. It doesn't look remotely as nonchalant as he probably thinks it does. “He didn't exactly wanna chat about it,” he mumbles. “Weirdly, I didn't feel like sticking around to ask.”  
  
“That's fair, I think.” She hands the collar back and only barely resists the urge to reach for the hand sanitizer she keeps beneath the bar. “It might be best to let Sans handle him for a little while?” She shakes her head, dazedly. “'Property of.' What the _hell_ ,” she repeats and it coaxes a dry, brittle little chuckle out of Papyrus.  
  
“You're telling me,” he replies, shoving the collar back into his pocket. “It's not _your_ name on the fuckin' thing.”  
  
“Papyrus,” she says, sharp. “That...that isn't _you_. You didn't do this.”  
  
“I know that,” he says, but he doesn't look at her when he says it. His fingerbones tighten on his glass with a small ceramic screech, like porcelain rubbed against itself. He swallows once, twice, three times, though he doesn't have a throat, so she thinks it might just be nervous reflex.  
  
Papyrus never _was_ a very good liar.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finally these assholes talk to each other.
> 
> also, we've unlocked pap's tragic backstory ~~i'm so sorry~~
> 
> please see end tags for warnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all
> 
> i am so sorry its been so long. and this is so short. gonna try not to go two weeks between updates again.
> 
> also hey, [this person](http://xaira-gabvi.tumblr.com) has drawn some (NSFW) [drawn](http://xaira-gabvi.tumblr.com/post/150367986747/hey-look-im-now-officially-undertale-trash) [some](http://xaira-gabvi.tumblr.com/post/149013696787/honeymustard-kinda-gosh-i-had-fun-drawing-these) [amazing](http://xaira-gabvi.tumblr.com/post/149704123902/here-have-some-sansational-ussans-vs-ufsans) things, if you haven't seen them already.
> 
> as always, your feedback nourishes me. thank you so much to everyone who's left it. come yell at me at [SFW](http://vstheworld.tumblr.com) or my [NSFW](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com) blog

“So _what_ ,” Sans says, low, eyelights fixed not on Papyrus, but on the empty glass clenched tight between his hands, “you just....you thought I wouldn't notice? Ever?”   
  
He keeps his forearm turned down towards the tabletop to hide the lettering, though the angle looks awkward and a little bit painful. “Because it's easy, right?” he snarls, his voice picking up in both speed and volume as he continues, like he's accelerating.   
  
His eyelights dilate. His browbone scrunches into something bristling, angry and unfamiliar. “It's so _easy_ to get things by me, right, stupid, naive little Sans, doesn't know when youre drinking on the clock, or when you're stumbling home at seven a.m. because you passed out on the floor at Muffet's, or when you went and busted your knuckles on the fucking _wall_ again because you have _night terrors_ , you're not _clumsy_ and you think I won't _notice_ _—!”_  
  
Papyrus flinches before he catches himself, pulls back a little like Sans had struck him, which.   
  
He would never. Papyrus knows that. He _had_ never, not even on accident, not even if lashing out at Papyrus had been a reflex natural as breathing for his own father.   
  
Somehow, whatever instinct _that_ should have bred in Sans during his formative years had just sort of...never blossomed. Quite the opposite actually—more than a few nights where Gaster had been rough and impatient with Papyrus, Sans had put his own work on hold and fetched bags of assorted vegetables from the freezer to gently lay across the bruises so they didn't swell quite as badly.   
  
Compared to the terrified little thing shivering in their shed, he knows he was lucky. Still, he flushes a vague orange at the reaction, embarrassed that of all monsters, his stupid body picked his _brother_ to flinch away from.  
  
(“He didn't get you in the face this time, at least,” Sans says gently, and presses a bag of frozen peas, wrapped in a pillowcase to cut the bite of cold on swollen bone, to the reddening mark on Papyrus's radius, about the width of his father's hollow hand. Papyrus jerks at the touch anyways, and looks up at his pseudo-brother, who does not look back.  
  
Sans is smiling, but his sockets are dark and sad, hollow in this eerie, absent way Papyrus doesn't understand. He's never sounded like that before either, hushed and giving out a little on the occasional syllable, like he's being patched in through a bad connection.  
  
Papyrus shrugs, nonchalant. “Sure, yeah. Awful nice of him. Dad's a real stand-up guy.”   
  
He can wear his hoodie to school tomorrow at least—nice perk of getting knocked around in a cold environment, he guesses. He doesn't know what he'd have done if they'd been brought up in Hotland's sweltering climate.  
  
And that makes him chuckle a little, because that's not strictly true.   
  
He'd have done exactly what he did in Snowdin: keep out of the way and hope it was enough.   
  
Try to duck, when it inevitably wasn't.)  
  
What the hell is he supposed to say here? Apologize, probably, for keeping his brother in the dark, for treating him like a child. For assuming that his ignorance meant the cracks would've healed over, too.   
  
For assuming that Sans would be fine just because he _forgot_.  
  
“You thought I was your brother,” he says miserably, mostly to his own kneecaps. “What was I _supposed_ to do?”  
  
Sans makes a small, thick noise in the back of his throat. “Don't you _dare_ ,” he seethes. “Don't you make this into one of your goddamn—I don't need your _pity_ , Papyrus.”  
  
Sans so rarely uses his full name. It twists something awful in the pit of his incorporeal stomach, this sharp little jab of pain like Sans had slipped a knife between his ribs instead. Which might have been preferable, actually.   
  
“Sans, no,” Papyrus starts and jumps when his brother cuts him off, slams one small hand with surprising force onto the heavy wood tabletop. His eyelights flare white-hot, furious, bright as sparklers for only a second, but Papyrus cringes anyways.  
  
“Fuck you, ' _Sans, no_ ,'” he growls. “Sans gets to talk now, how about that? You had your chance, pal, you've had _years_ of chances, apparently, and you kept your goddamn mouth shut, so. You're gonna shut it a little bit longer and _let me talk_.”   
  
“...okay,” Papyrus agrees numbly. His own voice echoes tinny, strange in the hollows of his skull. It's hard to hear it past the dull buzz of the white noise filling his ear canals anyways, so he doesn't suppose it matters all that much.  
  
“Good.” Sans closes his eye sockets and takes a deep, shuddering breath. Holds for a long second, and releases it in a smooth exhale. His hands are still curled into tiny, white-knuckled fists, but when he opens his sockets again, his eyelights glow their usual calm, bright blue— though they flicker with each minute clench of his fingerbones. “I'm sorry I yelled at you, Pap. I really didn't mean to scare you.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Papyrus's idiot mouth says before his higher brain can quite process the command to stop it. “You remember now, don't you?”  
  
Sans's browbone wrinkles in thought at that and he's silent for a moment. The curious, detached part of Papyrus wants to question it, wants to ask how it feels, that flooding of alien memories like a hard drive's been dumped into the shadowy recesses of his brain. It seems to take him a few moments to access them, anyways, which is fascinating on a whole level Papyrus is probably far too stupid to actually understand.   
  
“He hit you,” Sans mutters, absent, like he's trying to memorize it. Like he read it in one of his beloved books, and there's going to be a quiz later. “He...he made me, and he _hated_ you.”  
  
Papyrus doesn't flinch at that. He's heard it often enough, hasn't he, countless snarled reassurances that if it weren't for him, his mother would still be alive, everything would be better, he'd have his wife and his perfectly-crafted offspring, Gaster would still have his _family—_  
  
(“S4 is a _success,”_ Gaster had pointed out the single time Papyrus had summoned the courage to ask what the disconnect was between him and his pseudo-brother. “He's capable of performing complex equations in his head. He's invaluable in the lab. He's brilliant. He's _useful_.”   
  
Gaster had paused then, turned slightly to look at Papyrus over one shoulder. Papyrus was pretty sure he'd never forget the lazy, indifferent slope of his father's single visible eye socket when he said, calmly, “You...I don't know _what_ you are.”  
  
“His name is Sans _,”_ Papyrus had said, instead of anything that mattered.  
  
In class the next morning, when Undyne stammered out an inquiry about his broken wrist, Papyrus had shrugged, mumbled that he'd fallen down the stairs.   
  
Technically speaking, it was true.)  
  
It's not like he ever really stops being aware of it, though, right?  
  
It's...better than it was, certainly, when Gaster had been alive, ever-present, larger-than-life and seemingly _everywhere_ , just waiting for Papyrus to trip over one of his ever-changing rules.   
  
He can relax now, at least. He can smoke himself stupid in the comfort of his own room without having to worry about the sharp staccato of his father's knuckles on his bedroom door. He can drink himself to sleep in Muffet's bar every night if he wants because he's never going to come home again to a single light turned on in the living room and his father's still form sat ramrod-straight in his armchair—the one Papyrus skirts by a wide margin whenever he crosses the room even now.   
  
He doesn't really think about it deliberately, but sometimes—sometimes, Alphys will surprise him and he'll cringe away from her enthusiastic hugs. Sometimes, Sans spends all afternoon on a new recipe and Papyrus finds he can't choke down more than a few bites, no matter how much he steels himself for it, and the guilt makes him so sick after that he can't manage the leftovers, either.  
  
Sometimes he stays so stoned that he can barely talk for _days_ , which is a significant improvement over actually telling his brother any of this.  
  
He'd never seen Gaster so much as threaten to strike Sans. The occasional sharp word, maybe, and once or twice he cruelly pointed out that Sans was _technically_ lab property, but actual violence was never necessary. Sans was perfectly obedient without it anyways.   
  
He was quiet and calm and focused, speaking mostly when spoken to. Creepy, kinda, with that vacant smile and the subservient dip of his head every time Gaster so much as looked at him. It took _months_ of them living together for Papyrus to realize there was even a personality in there.  
  
(Early on, he'd _loathed_ Sans for that, for the easy way he slipped into whatever Gaster demanded.   
  
He can only pray his brother doesn't remember that.)  
  
Sans is still staring at him, and Papyrus mentally shakes himself. He'd been asked a question right, _right_ , and he'd just gone kind of slack and unresponsive instead of doing anything with that at all. “Yeah,” he manages with a low, bitter chuckle. “Yeah, I'd, uh, I'd say he wasn't too fond of me.”  
  
Sans's brow wrinkles, his eyelights swelling so huge and hurt they're practically drowning out the black of his sockets. “I can't believe you,” he says. “Why would you—why would you let me forget that?”  
  
There's no good answer Papyrus can give him here. _You always wanted to talk about it_ is cruel and _you were driving me crazy with it_ is worse. _I couldn't stand the way you said it, like you understood_ fuck all _just because you could regurgitate a textbook_ is literally the worst possible thing he could contribute, so he just kind of shrugs instead, and stays silent. What kind of shitty brother is he, to throw Sans's attempts at help back at him like it's, what, some kind of justification for the fact that Papyrus has let him live in blissful ignorance for _years?_  
  
“I'm sorry,” he says instead and regrets it the second it slips past his teeth. Sans's face creases into what nearly counts as a scowl on his forced grin.   
  
Papyrus always was a terrible liar.  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> child abuse, Gaster is just the worst, Papyrus is bad at coping


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> red v. little miss fish or: undyne plays twenty questions and regrets it immediately

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another quick one, but i missed red. 
> 
> sorry i've been so absent in replying to comments, it's been a hell of a week at work. each and every one of y'all make my DAY with your feedback. thank you so much.

  
“why'd they send _you_?”  
  
It's the first thing he's said in nearly twenty minutes. Undyne's head drifts up, her fingers freezing on the screen of her phone, but it turns out she didn't need to bother—his eye sockets are still closed, chin tipped down onto his chest like he's sleeping. Which she'd actually assumed he was, up until he'd decided to scare the shit out of her.  
  
She _hates_ jump scares.  
  
“Dunno,” she says warily. “Papyrus seemed to think I wouldn't freak you out so much, I guess.” She fiddles absently with the mute switch of her phone because he isn't looking at her, and that doesn't give her any eye contact to avoid so she...isn't entirely sure what to do with her face like this.  
  
“well, ain't he a sweetheart,” he drawls, and it sounds so very like her own Sans—albeit scratchier, and a little slurred still—that she pictures him for a second instead, sweet little face creased in pain. Or maybe panic? It's difficult to tell which.  
  
“mind telling me why?”  
  
Undyne blinks. “Why what?”  
  
He actually lets his eyelights flicker into life at the question. They're shrunk to tiny, terrified little pinpricks though, only the faint pink glow making them at all visible in the dusky shed. “...why is Papyrus concerned about what freaks me out,” he says, sounding each syllable out slowly, like he thinks she might be stupid.  
  
She trips over her words a lot. It's a look she'd recognize anywhere.  
  
“He's...a nice guy?” She's pretty sure he is, anyways, and he's surprisingly funny, when she can manage to coax anything coherent out of him.  
  
(And he'd looked absolutely _wrecked_ , hadn't he, when he'd pulled her aside in the hallway—well, okay, so “pulled” might be a gentle description. He grabbed her shoulders with both of those big hands, picked her up like she'd weighed nothing and shoved her up against the wall before she so much as had a chance to realize he was moving towards her.  
  
The noise she made might have best been described as a squeak, though she will conveniently delete that from the story later, when she recounts it to Alphys.  
  
“You told him,” he'd hissed, single burning eye boring into hers, holding her in place like an insect stuck straight through with a pin. “You...I worked so _hard_ to keep it away from him, and you just...why?”  
  
“I didn't!” she'd protested, the faint stirrings of panic coppery in the back of her throat. She'd curled both hands to her chest like that offered any real defense, tried her best to kind of ball up to protect her squishy middle, half on instinct alone. Papyrus was a pretty big guy, and she....well, suffice to say Undyne hadn't seen the inside of the gym in quite a while.  
  
“I promised you I wouldn't! It was sans—the other sans, he said the name, and, a-and I thought your Sans was too far away to h-hear but he m-must've, he must've caught it a-anyways, I-I'm s-so sorry!”  
  
She must have cringed back from him, in retrospect, must have flinched when he moved because that was usually her default mode when someone was towering over her. It didn't happen often—even with her apologetic slouch, she was a gawky six feet and some change. If Papyrus ever bothered to stand straight, though, ever bothered to uncurl his spine out of its lazy parenthese, she'd be willing to be he'd be at least two heads taller than her. Maybe three.  
  
But she had flinched and he'd seen it. Of course he had. His face had tightened like she'd hit him and he'd swallowed once, thickly, his eyelights flickering like busted headlamps.  
  
He had set her down so gently, she didn't even realize her feet had touched the floor again until his hands squeezed once around her shoulders and released. He stepped back from her, less like a monster realizing he'd lost his temper, and more like a kicked dog cowering outside striking distance of a heavy boot. His cheekbones were flushed a dark, unfamiliar orange, though he tucked his hands into his hoodie pockets with a clearly-practiced ease.  
  
“...is it so bad?” she'd asked, quietly, after several long, silent moments during which Papyrus just sort of...stared, blank, into the middle distance like he'd somehow forgotten Undyne was even there.  
  
“huh?” he'd muttered, sounding dazed.  
  
“Sans kn-knowing.” Undyne had clarified, twisting her claws into the worn hem of her labcoat. “I m-mean,” she'd said, clearing her throat to steady her quivering voice “just because you p-pretend it didn't happen doesn't u-undo it, you know?”  
  
The sound he'd made at that was a flat, grey thing that was definitively _not_ a laugh. “sure, kid,” he'd agreed easily, which wasn't actually any kind of response at all.  
  
He knocked his shoulder against hers fondly as he passed, possibly in apology, and that was that.)  
  
“yeah,” the other sans says, eyesockets narrowed to slits. “yeah, i'm getting that impression. 'cause  
i'm assuming if you've been sitting in that chair for the last half hour playing, what was that, Tetris? he didn't send you to...do anything. to me,” he clarifies when she tilts her head a few degrees to one side. “for, uh. for what happened in waterfall.”  
  
That's how she thinks of it afterwards, forever and ever amen: What Happened In Waterfall.  
  
It's a much more comfortable title than, say, That One Time Sans Nearly Assaulted Himself, anyways. It's clinical enough that it doesn't make anything horrible in her chest wrench when she says it, doesn't bring to mind her friend flat on his back in the dirt, pinned and terrified under the weight of his doppelganger. Doesn't make her see that bright, swollen mark on his collarbone where this sans's jagged teeth had caught and _crushed_.  
  
“No,” she says and is vaguely (stupidly) proud of how steady it comes out. “He wouldn't. Papyrus isn't like that.”  
  
“welp,” he says lazily and lets his sockets drift closed again with a soft chuckle. “isn't _that_ new and different.”  
  
He looks for all the world like he might be going back to sleep, but the tip of his tail is beating a throttled staccato on the ground in what she is learning might count for agitation, on him. His hands are looped around his knees, fingers loosely interlocked. As she watches, he digs the tip of his pointer claw into a faint crack across the back of his opposite hand until the bone creaks, the black space between the grimy surfaces yawning wider, darker. It has to hurt—she can hear the noise it makes from here, like the sound of a popsicle stick cracking—but his expression remains slack and serene.  
  
Undyne's own fingers itch for a pen and notepad, her phone, _anything_ to take this down. He's fascinating on a level she's thankful no one is here to see, her analytical mind sparking to life in clear priority over the fact that he's still a monster, and he's _hurting_ himself. _Why_ is he hurting himself, she wants to know, why is that a stress response he doesn't even seem to be aware of, what did his Gaster _do_ to him, why is he so jarringly different from the one she knows? She can't come up with a single way to ask any of that she thinks might land well, though, so instead she frowns and says, “What do you mean?”  
  
She's expecting another deflection. He's good at that, she'd noticed earlier in the kitchen when she'd watched him struggle through the mire of confused pop culture references that was any extended conversation with Alphys. He's good at sidestepping any questions he's asked, at making some dry quip or asking a question _just_ related enough not to seem too out of place. She'd even caught herself at one point in the evening explaining this book she'd been reading on black holes in considerable depth, completely unconcerned that he hadn't actually responded when she had mentioned how _fascinating_ it must be to meet yourself. How lucky he was.  
  
She's expecting him to dodge, is the point, but instead, he lifts his head again and fixes his eyelights on her in the closest he's come to making eye contact yet. “what do _you_ mean?”  
  
“What, um,” she stammers, and grips her handfuls of cotton harder. “If your Papyrus isn't like that, then what, um. What is he like? What did he _do_ to you?”  
  
He doesn't stop smiling, obviously. She knows he can't. But somehow, though his grin remains pinned neatly in place, it's like watching a light go off, the way his whole face dims. All other expression vanishes, like he'd stepped out for a moment and forgot to leave any indication of when he'd be back.  
  
He speaks, though, and his voice is completely neutral, steady, as though he's giving her directions to the closest corner store. “ta- _daaaaaa_ ,” he singsongs, and gestures at himself with both hands, fingers spread wide to indicate every pitted, scarred inch of his dirty, damp bones. “what, do i really seem _that_ clumsy? a guy can only walk into so many doorknobs, y'know.”  
  
She doesn't laugh. Of course she doesn't. Her brain stuttered to a precise standstill when she realized what he was telling her, what he was indicating about his relationship with his brother. That Papyrus was the one who did this to him. That he _let_ Papyrus do this to him, because if he was _anything_ like her Sans, he wouldn't let his brittle single HP stop him from defending himself.  
  
Not even from Papyrus, she really prefers to think.  
  
“Gaster didn't—?“ she asks before she quite manages to stop herself and immediately winces. He doesnt seem offended—he actually huffs out a low husk of laugh at that, sockets crinkling with mirth. “S-sorry,” she stammers, but he only waves a hand in dismissal.  
  
“oh, sure he did. Pap was much more, uh...enthusiastic about it, though.” She wonders if he even realizes he's running his tongue idly over the tip of his gold tooth, the metal clicking on his piercings in a grate that makes her ear fins flatten back against her skull. “kid always was creative,” he tacks on, and it sounds warm, somehow, almost fond.  
  
Undyne kinda feels like she might puke. “Oh,” she says, faint. “Did you...get him back at least?”  
  
He actually raises his browbone at that, a weirdly fluid motion on his skeletal face that doesn't seem like it makes a whole lot of biological sense. “god no,” he chuckles. “i'm dumb, kiddo, but i ain't _that_ dumb.” He leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees and letting his hands dangle loose in his lap, skull tipped up to face her. “look, what do you wanna know? i'll tell you anything you want, but you gotta promise me to do one favor for me after.”  
  
“I ain't _that_ dumb,” she parrots back at him, somewhat pleased when his grin creaks minutely wider. “Tell me the favor first, and I'll consider it.”  
  
“i want you to let me go.”  
  
“No. What? No,” she says without missing a beat. She bristles at the mere suggestion, her cheeks flushing a darker navy with the first stirrings of righteous outrage. “You committed a _crime_ , dude. You...you tried to _rape_ _Sans_ , man, I'm not gonna just...fucking _no,_ are you kidding me? _”_  
  
“hear me out,” he tries.  
  
“My girlfriend is the _Captain of the Royal Guard_ ,” Undyne reminds him primly.  
  
“and let me guess,” he says, an edge of frustration creeping into his voice. “you've probably got, what, some kind of prison? rehab? that's what i can look forward to? you let me go and i'll do you one better, huh? i'll make that solution permanent, and your girl won't even have to get her claws dirty. everyone wins.”  
  
Undyne's a smart girl, is the thing. She's _always_ been the smart girl, her brain always whirring in overdrive, processing at a speed her mouth can't quite keep up with. She's analyzing before the teacher has finished reading the word problem, she's ten pages ahead when the class is reading aloud and still, she just blinks dumbly at sans for a full thirty seconds before she manages, “...are you asking me to let you go so you can _kill yourself.”_  
  
He winks at her. Shrugs.  
  
“What the _fuck_ ,” Undyne snarls.  
  
She is _really_ not cut out for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> child abuse, violence, self-harm, suicide, undyne bonds with red


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sans/Sans bonding idk
> 
> sans still hasn't made it out of the shed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry y'all work has been slammed and due to some financial fun times i have been off my meds for a minute, so! i apologize for the probably weird update schedule.
> 
> but uh, here, have this in the meantime.
> 
> (please come yell at me about upsetting skels or w/e at [ my NSFW tumblr](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com) please thank

The Shed—and Papyrus always said it like that, implicit capitals and all—was a punishment that sans should have been more used to, probably.  
  
Like everything in this stupid universe, it's even nicer than the one he's come to know so well. Theirs is this cozy little wood affair, hard-packed dirt floor and no evidence of cold seeping in through the walls where the boards don't notch together right. One corner is occupied by a haphazard jumble of tools and the odd paint can, while two secondhand bicycles lean up against the adjacent wall. Otherwise the space is empty, filled only with the slant of daylight through the single window, the lazy spiraling of dust particles in the air.  
  
Only a little of it is _his_ dust. He'd had a hard time catching his breath after Undyne's hasty departure, couldn't manage to crush the panic down into the pit of his nonexistent stomach the way he usually did, even with the thick, muzzy fog of the drugs still working their way through his system.  
  
_Useless_. He couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stand listening to the rattling of his own bones in the cold stillness of the shed, so he'd sunk his teeth hard into his own forearm instead. Bit down, until it sparked and it creaked and it _screamed_ , until he couldn't focus on anything at all past the pain.  
  
He'd made no sound, just spit the resulting mouthful of dust onto the floor. Did it again. And again.  
  
Gaster hadn't used the shed even as a threat himself, which sans can't quite manage to find it in himself to be grateful for. The few times sans had actually slipped badly enough to get himself kicked out of the house, Gaster had simply picked him up—an easy task, considering his pseudo-father dwarfed him by a couple of feet—and deposited him on the front porch without so much as a word of explanation.  
  
Papyrus...never really handled that well. sans wonders if that's maybe why he'd always preferred locking him in the shed instead as an adult. Wonders why his brother still thought he would run at the first available opportunity, if he didn't run back then. Wonders why he trusts sans so little and then he wonders why he's wasting time on _that_ particular bit of cheer, because honestly, what are the chances he's even going to see Papyrus again, at this rate?  
  
The thing is. The thing is, sans may be stupid but he isn't _dumb_. He knows, realistically, that he should be relieved at the idea, at the very least. He should be...hell, he should be happy about it, probably, because as much as he may have made a grave fucking error here, as much as he's managed to careen this entire miracle second chance straight into a wall at breakneck speed, Papyrus had still point-blank refused to hurt him.  
  
Papyrus had actually visibly gagged at the thought, eye sockets going black and empty. It's such a bizarre juxtaposition with his memory of his own brother's slick, creeping smile that sans almost has to remind himself that they're the same monster. Has to remind himself that bleak potential lives somewhere in this copy, too, if sans can only learn where the right goddamn buttons are.  
  
(Which he doesn't want, exactly, but also kind of _does._ He wants to see that electric fury narrowing Papyrus's sleepy, kind eyelights into something fierce and burning and familiar. Wants those big hands curled bruising around his throat, the back of his skull, the chipped arcs of his pelvic bones. Wants him to bite and crush and spit sans's name like a curse word because then it might start feeling like the world's back on somewhat even ground again.  
  
sans desperately wants it laid out, with all of his brother's trademark black-and-white lack of diplomacy, exactly what the rules are here. Because he's stumbling around blind on his own now, isn't he, and this, _this_ is what happens when he's left to his own devices, when there's no one to pull tight on his leash to keep him in check. He needs a handler for a reason, doesn't he?  
  
He's dangerous. He's volatile. He's violent and he's unstable and he's a goddamn hazard to the first two monsters he's ever met who have been nothing but kind to him.  
  
He's an animal they should have put down the moment they found him bleeding out in the trash. He knows it.  
  
Now they do, too.)  
  
Any sane monster would be thrilled at this reprieve. What are the odds, really, that of all universes he could have found himself stranded in, he wound up with this...this fairy-tale version of himself and his brother? This saccharine, sickening reality where they love each other and they bicker over household chores and they buy groceries together and share their drinks and fall asleep with a shitty horror movie on the tv and their feet tangled together on the couch? He got lucky, he reminds himself. It could have been so much worse.  
  
He should be thankful for the closest thing to a vacation he's ever had, but.  
  
sans, eternally in spite of himself, really misses his brother.  
  
He squeezes his eye sockets shut and buries his face in the curve of his own shoulder best he can. It's been easy, mostly, keeping his mind away from that topic with the other two skeletons around, occupied as he is with keeping tabs on Papyrus's every move, with watching the other Sans's sweet, expressive face for the violent shift he _knows_ is lurking in there somewhere. If he keeps his brain busy, it doesn't do that awful, spiraling, black-hole thing where it insists on _thinking_.  
  
He hasn't had time, blessedly, to really consider his own Papyrus, or what he must be doing back home. It hits him now with all the subtlety of a tidal wave crashing into a cliffside, and he's suddenly up to his fucking eye sockets in a mire of stupid, inane worries, considering his brother is significantly more competent adult than sans himself. Still—is he remembering to eat? Is he sleeping? Is there anyone to bandage up his stupid, stubborn bones when he inivitably takes another crack at Undyne?  
  
It's...safer, mostly, with another monster to watch your back, but sans is probably just kidding himself on that front, by now. Papyrus isn't a child. He doesn't really need sans's protection anymore. Papyrus doesn't need _him_. Hasn't, really, for nearly a decade now.  
  
He's convenient, maybe, but Papyrus is an attractive enough guy—if sans managed to get his drunk ass laid with any kind of frequency, surely his little brother can learn to adapt. It's even...well, it's better that way, probably, better that Papyrus figures it out with a monster somewhat on his level, someone who can hold their own against his temper. Something approaching an equal.  
  
It's not like sans was doing him any favors in that department, was he, by allowing their weird little game to continue as long as it did.  
  
The panic sneaks up on him so quietly this time that he doesn't even realize he's hyperventilating until tiny fingerbones curl around his right shoulder. He startles, cringes back like he's been burned, sockets flying open in alarm. Knocks his skull against the wall for his troubles, and his vision bursts with bright stars of pain when wood meets the slow-healing crack he'd put in it not an hour before. “mother _fucker_ ,” he hisses.  
  
His doppelgänger—wearing an unzipped blue hoodie over his tank top, leaving the nasty bruise smeared across his clavicle in full, nauseating view—is crouched down in front of him, browbone wrinkled in concern. His sockets look blacker, somehow, than they had that morning.  
  
He positively _reeks_ of whiskey.  
  
“Don't do that,” he says softly, and it's only then that sans clocks that he's got his ulna clamped firmly between his own teeth again. The other Sans touches a thumb clumsy to the hinge of sans's jaw, doesn't really press in very hard, but sans lets go obedient anyways. “That can't be good for you.”  
  
Which. That is a _hilarious_ thing for the little guy to be concerning himself with here, isn't it, when sans was pretty certain the other Papyrus's easy smile was the last thing he was going to see in his short, hateful life. He giggles, only a little bit hysterically, and slaps a hand over his mouth, as though the cage of his fingerbones might keep further sound from slipping between his teeth.  
  
It doesn't, obviously. His twin doesn't look reassured by the sound in the least either, pale blue eyelights shrinking into worried little pinpricks of aquamarine.  
  
It's worlds divorced from the horrified, crackling expanse of those same eyelights blown wide, wet with tears as he had stared up at sans and pleaded to be let up, pleaded for sans to stop, _sans, please_ and sans didn't, of course, he couldn't, he didn't hesitate in the least because there's something deeply black and wrong and furious nestled in the very center of the ever-present tangle of anxiety in his chest, he's sick and he's filthy and he's always known it, he's _just_ _like_ _Gaster_ —  
  
—and sans is still laughing like his counterpart had told the best joke he'd ever heard, only sans also has got his claws sunk deep into the angle of his jaw like he's trying to pin his own mouth shut.  
  
It's not really working.  
  
“you're not s-supposed to be here,” he stammers out, mostly without meaning to. “c-can't, can't be around me, you can't—don't _touch_ me, what the f-fuck is wrong with you?”  
  
“What the fuck is wrong with _me_?” his twin asks, incredulous. “You just asked two separate monsters to _murder_ _you,_ champ, so how about we sidestep whatever weird little glass-house scenario you've got going on here for the moment, and you do me the dencency of telling me what the hell happened out there.”  
  
“i tried to,” sans says, and promptly chokes on it. He doesn't even know what he was planning to follow it with, so he just shrugs instead, dropping his own eyelights down to the ground. Studies with unnecessary intensity the snowflakes melting on the toes of the other Sans's heavy boots, on the faded black canvas of the backpack resting next to his feet.  
  
He can't explain it to himself so he sure as shit isn't going to be able to explain it to Sans. He wasn't exactly thinking straight, was he, wasn't exactly considering the repercussions of his actions beyond wanting to pull the teeth from his doppelgänger' stupid smile one by one until the kid's sweet expression spiderwebbed and cracked like a cheap mirror. He wanted desperately to crush that smooth white bone beneath his own dirty knuckles until this impossible Sans looked like _him_ , hollow and wary and a little bit like he hadn't slept a decent night in his entire life. Something nasty curls tight in his belly at the thought of that, of having to force out some reason why he'd very nearly—  
  
“i wanted to hurt you,” is all he can come up with. It's such a lame attempt, though, such a pitiful grasp at at any kind of reasoning that he can feel his cheekbones flushing dark despite the cold, and he hunches a little further into his jacket.  
  
(And there it is, right, Exhibit fuckin' A, evidence that this sunny little version of Sans _couldn't_ be right. Couldn't be real, had to be some kind of cosmic anomaly, because he is a Good Person with all the appropriate capital letters. Sans had been terrified, and rightly so—he'd been bruised and trembling and nearly on the verge of tears, half-preoccupied with keeping sans immobile in the grip of his blue magic and still, he'd remembered somehow to retrieve the jacket from the ground where he'd dropped it.  
  
He'd had every right to snap sans's neck right then and there. sans isn't even really sure he'd have fought it much, at that point. Instead, his idiot little twin had been kind enough— thoughtful enough— to even return the jacket to him before he'd been closed so unceremoniously in the shed.  
  
sans had attacked him, violated him, and he'd....he'd just been worried sans would be _cold._  
  
He can't be real. They can't be the same monster.  
  
There's no _way._ )  
  
“You're shaking,” the other Sans murmurs, instead of anything even remotely reasonable. He reaches for the backpack next to him slow, measured, like he's still trying his best not to startle the trembling, terrified mess sans can practically feel himself splintering into. sans can't see his counterpart's face from where he's fixed his eyelights on the ground but he sounds almost like he's smiling when he says, “You've gotta be freezing, dumbass. You aren't even wearing shoes. Why didn't you say anything?”  
  
He seems to know better than to expect a response, because a warm, musty weight wraps around him. The other Sans covers him in a patched blanket he'd pulled from his backpack, one in the same pattern as the sheets on his bed. It smelled only faintly of mothballs. “Move over,” he says. He doesn't actually bother waiting for compliance, just drops into the dirt next to sans. He pulls half of the blanket over himself until they're both swaddled in it to their chins, pressed awkwardly together along their sides.  
  
Well, sans holds himself awkwardly anyways, unsure, rigid as a statue. His doppelgänger gives a tiny, exasperated sigh and curls into his body like a comma, sagging warm weight against his shoulder. His hand reaches for sans's, and sans doesn't manage much more than “the fuck're you— ?” before those small fingers wrap around his and squeeze tight. The other hand brackets his wristbone more gently, but both are shaking. Something catches sharp, unpleasant, just beneath sans's floating ribs.  
  
“Hey. Shut up for a few minutes, okay? I just—we got plenty of time to sort this out. Can we just be quiet for a little while? Please?” This close, he smells like burnt caramel, too, something warm and sugary beneath the familiar burn of the whiskey. He's leaning a little heavy on his vowels, voice thick and blurry and sad. His breath on sans's collarbone hitches a little unevenly, like he might be trying not to cry. “I'm _drunk_ ,” he adds unnecessarily, and gives a halfhearted attempt at a chuckle.  
  
When sans shifts his doppelgänger against his chest, when he wraps one arm around the kid's shoulders and pulls him deeper into the hollow of warmth between their bodies, the other Sans doesn't stiffen the way Papyrus had as a child. He doesn't shrink back, doesn't snarl up into himself suspiciously, even when sans's tail wraps over his boots and tugs him closer.  
  
Instead, the other Sans practically _melts_ into the touch. His stocky little body goes lax against sans's own, skull ducking to press into the shelter between sans's jaw and his clavicle like the space was carved out precisely for that purpose. The sound he makes in the back of his throat is a soft, pleased thing, warm and wholly unfamiliar.  
  
sans jerks a little, surprised, when one small hand slips up under his jacket and around the column of his spine to rest loosely there, just above his pelvis. Dimly, he wonders if the thumb stroking absent over the cracked vertebrae is an accident or a request.  
  
He doesn't move, either way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, more sad than anything. some vaguely sanscesty vibes, i guess.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> red and blue take a vacation...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all so it has been some Times lately and I'm real sorry this is so short, I just kinda want to see the momentum going here. There will be a part 2 of this hopefully posted in the next couple days.
> 
> thank you to everyone who's commented, or reached out to me on the tumbles. y'all are the reason for the season.
> 
> come yell at me at vstheworld.tumblr.com or morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com (nsfw) i take requests and also just screaming please come scream
> 
> anyways
> 
> here's wonderwall

  
To her immense credit—and possibly due in large part to the suspiciously-carbonated “water” she's got in a glass bottle by the register—Sonja doesn't ask any questions when Sans, who has never actually darkened her doorway before tonight, closes the door behind him and says brightly, if a little slurred, “Heya , Sonja. How's it hanging? Any rooms open tonight?”  
  
He smells just as drunk as she looks, probably. She blinks blearily at him once, twice, her black eyes flicking to the face just over his shoulder, a bruised, dirty echo of his own, half-hidden in the dirty fur collar of his jacket.   
  
She frowns, kind of, and tilts her head to the side, but she reaches for a large plastic tag with a silver key and the number 4 stamped in aggressive block print anyways. “Sure,” she says evenly, and, with all the careful deliberation of someone very used to drinking on the clock, drops the key onto the wood countertop. From behind him, Sans can hear his doppelgänger suck in a tiny, surprised breath at the sound. “You, uh—is one bed okay for you guys? The doubles are kiiinda full up tonight.”  
  
Sans is pretty sure his already-flushed cheekbones positively _glow_ at that, but he just grins and shrugs. Hopes it looks something approaching casual. “I'd sleep on the floor in the hallway, at this point, honestly.” He picks up the key, and tucks it into his pocket, counting out a handful of gold pieces with the other.  
  
Sonja shakes her head when he tries to hand them over, though, waves his money away. “Hey, no—you're on Guard business, right?” She doesn't bother to wait for an answer. She's also not even remotely looking at Sans when she says, “I'll find a medical kit for him.”  
  
“Thank you,” he murmurs, tucking the money back into his pocket. “Some soap would be nice, too, if you can spare any.”   
  
She nods, and disappears into a back office to fetch the requested supplies. Sans taps his claws absent against the scarred wood of the countertop, clicking out some offbeat pattern, and studies his twin out of the corner of his eye socket.  
  
The other sans hasn't so much as said a word since they'd left the shed and he's not completely sure if it's deliberate or not. The guy keeps making these little choked-off noises, like he's trying to speak and it never quite works out right. He's got both hands wrapped in a death grip around the strap of Sans's backpack, which he had picked up without question, like it was just his default mode to assume any required labor. Like if there was something to be carried, of _course_ he would be the one carrying it.  
  
Sans is...beginning to see a pretty disturbing pattern there, honestly.  
  
He'd thought he was doing the other sans a favor, giving him space to breathe, letting him come to them in his own time. It's how he handles Papyrus on his worst days, right, the days he stumbles downstairs still drunk, empty black voids where his honey-warm eyelights should be. The days he reeks of weed and terror and straight grain alcohol, the days he bristles like a startled cat if Sans so much as brushes against him and backs himself into corners and never ever says a single word about _why_.  
  
But Papyrus always seems to burn himself out within a few days, each time it happens. It's not ideal—it always leaves him kind of muzzy after, like each episode drains him so totally of energy that he can't even find it in himself to protest when Sans parks him firmly on the couch with a shitty horror movie marathon and a six-pack and a no-nonsense order to _rest, you idiot, I'm still technically your commanding officer and if I so much as see you_ move _from that couch, I'm suspending you for a month. A_ fter he always seems a little vacant, a little slow to respond when he's addressed directly, but time and space and bad takeout and countless cigarettes seemed to patch him up within a few days, for the most part.  
  
But. But that's because Sans hadn't known any better. He hadn't _known_ why his brother would cringe away from him like a frightened animal. He'd thought it was just, just anxiety, maybe, just something in Papyrus's brain misfiring and translating even something as safe, as constant as his own brother as some kind of actual threat, but he'd been _so goddamn off-base_. He hadn't understood the blank terror in Papyrus's eyes when he looked at Sans like he was staring right through him, like he was seeing—  
  
Well.   
  
Sans knows _exactly_ what he's been seeing now.   
  
He kicks absently at the baseboard where it sits flush to the wall and scowls, best he can manage with his fixed smile. The other sans notices immediately—he _always_ notices any shift in mood, like he can smell it on them before it even happens—and he can feel dull pink eyelights snag on him and hold.  
  
“you okay?” he eventually croaks and it comes out so soft, Sans can barely make it out from the scant half-meter between them. He coughs. “you, uh. you...okay leaving Papyrus home by himself?”  
  
_Well, I'm sure as shit not leaving him with_ you, Sans thinks viciously and absolutely does not say, because as much as the image of his doppelgänger on his knees in front of his brother makes the skin he doesn't have _crawl—_  
  
(but no, they'd been in his room, right, so it was more likely Papyrus had been sleeping, sprawled flat on his back with one big hand tucked up under his shirt to rest just inside his ribcage the way he only does when he is passed the fuck out, and _that_ means the other sans would have had to crawl, wouldn't he, would have had to somehow manage to creep up onto Papyrus's mattress without disturbing him, somehow slip himself between Papyrus's splayed legs without even waking him and _no that is enough that is absolutely more than enough_ , he tells himself firmly. He really doesn't need to follow _that_ train of thought to the station.)  
  
—but if Sans had learned anything from their little encounter back in Waterfall, he'd learned that it didn't seem to be a totally voluntary response, which is all kinds of horrible he doesn't want to think about. He doesn't _want_ to see Papyrus in the way his doppelganget's shoulders curl inwards, in the way he braces his body like he's perpetually expecting impact, head ducked in apology.   
  
It's awful. It's _sickening_.   
  
It happened to his brother and _he had no idea_.  
  
“Undyne's staying with Papyrus,” Sans says, lifting one shoulder in what he thinks might be a casual shrug. “She's tougher than she looks. She can handle him. I'm, uh—is it okay with you if I help you get cleaned up? No offense, man, but Sonja has to wash the sheets—“  
  
If the sudden change in topic at all surprises the other sans, he doesn't give any indication. Just tilts his head, considering, carefully doesn't look at him and says, cool as a fucking cucumber, “...you can do whatever you _want_ with me.”  
  
“Oh, no,” Sans says immediately, with an uncomfortable lurch in the pit of his soul, his not-heart skipping a single nauseous beat. “No, no, _absolutely_ not. You can't just, Jesus _fuck_ , you can't just _say_ those things to people, man. That's not okay.”  
  
The other sans actually kind of picks his head up at that, oddly reminiscent of a dog perking up its ears at a distant whistle. “....why?”  
  
“ _Because_ ,” Sans begins desperately, and has absolutely no idea what he's supposed to follow it with.   
  
Sonja rescues him, thankfully, reappearing in the doorway with an armful of bath products corralled in a bright yellow basket and a few faded, but clean towels. Under her arm, she's tucked a metal box, which she surrenders first to Sans. His twin shuffles forwards to accept the rest of the supplies.  
  
“You just let me know if I need to call a healer, okay? Dial 0 from the room phone, I'm on duty all night.” She smiles at sans when he takes the towels from her and he positively cringes back, claws scrabbling much too loud on the wooden floorboards. He ends up half hiding behind Sans's comparative bulk but she doesn't press it, just folds her wings nearly against her sides. She wrinkles her brow in sympathy at Sans. “I'll send some food up a little later, if you'd like. On the house, of course.”  
  
“You're an _angel_ ,” Sans breathes and she just winks in response.  
  
His shadow says nothing, but he sticks unnervingly close to Sans's heels the entire climb up the narrow flight of stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh sans is Not Fine. Sans wants to talk about it. Papyrus is not fine. No one is fine,
> 
> please stay tuned for red getting a bath because reasons.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bath time pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who wanted more self-indulgent sans/Sans bonding? me, obviously. here we are.
> 
>  
> 
> thank you to everyone who's left feedback either here or at the companion story, [ life's a game, life's a joke ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6232009). for those of you that want more of uf!Pap not handling sans's disappearance at all, that story is now running parallel to this one, but with a focus on the UF!verse, obviously. Also, edgeberry?
> 
> this whole thing is getting out of control.

The bath is somehow even more of a disaster than Sans is anticipating.  
  
And he's going in here assuming it'll be bad, considering it involves two of the things his doppelgänger seems to hate the most: close proximity to another monster, and removing any of his layers of clothing.  
  
Well, no. That's not strictly accurate, is it? He'd been more than eager to shed them back in Waterfall, half-stripped down before he'd even so much as tried to touch Sans and....okay, maybe _that's_ what bugs him about it, now that he actually thinks about it.  
  
That small detail seemed wrong even at the time, somehow, though he hadn't had the mental capacity to do more than dully observe it in the moment. Now, he realizes how at odds that had been with the other sans he's kind of used to, the one who stands quietly out of the way, still as can be, until he's actually addressed by name.   
  
(Every night, though, _every fucking night_ he'd been at Papyrus's door, stone-cold sober save for whatever he'd had for dinner and the single white pill he was allowed before bedtime.   
  
He'd stood there, in as clear a mindset as he seems to be capable of and he's _terrified_ of Papyrus maybe, but he'd waited anyways. He'd waited and he'd tried the handle, even, which is a stark fucking contrast to the passive way he sort of just trails around after Sans most of the time, a constant, jumpy little shadow.  
  
It's _initiative._ It's a step outside his sort-of twin's shell, which he'd thought he understood pretty well. It's also the only thing he's seen the other sans do without requiring a command first, save for the way he'd dragged Sans himself down to the grass and crawled on top of him and—   
  
Well _. Anyways._ )  
  
The room Sonja shows them to is a cramped little affair, which Sans had honestly been expecting. Calling the place an inn is a tiny bit generous, maybe, considering there's only half a dozen tiny rooms, but it's warm and cozy, pale wood walls flooded with flickering yellows and oranges from the fireplace already crackling in the corner. There's a thick, plush quilt on the bed, six massive pillows propped up against the wooden headboard, and it's only then, somehow, that Sans abruptly realizes how very exhausted he is.   
  
The whiskey's still kind of burning this warm contentment in his belly despite how _entirely_ _terrible_ the last handful of hours have been. He collapses onto the mattress heavily with a grateful sigh, not even bothering to kick his boots off first. “Hey,” he mumbles, though he can only see the other sans from the knees down out of the corner of one half-closed socket, “you wanna maybe get that bath out of the way so we can sleep?”  
  
He assumes his doppelgänger must nod, because he doesn't say a word. There comes the gentle _click-clack_ of his claws though, the rustling grate of canvas on old, scuffed floorboards as he tries to find somewhere to stash the backpack. “Cool,” Sans says mostly to the ceiling, just to fill the blank silence. “You go ahead, I'm gonna close my eyes for a minute and then I'll come help you.”  
  
Still no response. The other sans doesn't say a thing, doesn't so much as move for a long, dragging minute. Then, never actually exiting Sans's sort-of field of vision, he drops his jacket and his shirt to the floor with a soft _fwump_ and promptly opens the door to the hallway again.  
  
Sans actually sits up at that, frowning best he can at his twin. The other sans goes abruptly still at the movement, frozen in the doorway with one hand still on the knob.  
  
He's bare-chested, wearing only his sweatpants, and also? He's parked himself in full view of any monster that happened to walk by. His back's to the hallway, granted, but it can't look much better than his front—his entire body is a _mess_. His back might actually be a little worse maybe, now that Sans thinks about it, considering the rapidly-purpling marks blossoming across his spine and pelvis where he'd been slammed hard into unforgiving stone.   
  
“Hey pal, uh...whatcha doing there?”  
  
The other sans gives this jerky little motion with his head, something indistinct that isn't quite a nod, and mumbles, “i, uh, did—did you want me to leave the pants here, too? th-thought the bird lady might not appreciate me walking around like that, but—”  
  
“No,” Sans interrupts quickly, before his twin has the chance to say anything else horrifying, “no, no, that's not even _remotely_ what I was asking, please keep your pants on. Where are you going? Come back inside. Close the door for fuck's sake, you're not even dressed.”  
  
The other sans blinks at him, expression shuttered and confused, but he obeys without question. He tugs the door closed and even locks the deadbolt. He doesn't move from the doorway, though he also doesn't ask for any further clarification.  
  
Doesn't even _breathe_ , sounds like. Just...stands there, awaiting orders.  
  
“sans,” he says to his twin gently, softly, like he's trying to soothe a startled animal, “were you....going outside? To, uh, take a bath?”  
  
“...yes?” his doppelgänger says, tentative, as though he maybe doesn't quite understand the question.   
  
“And that's...how you bathe at home?”  
  
“when Papyrus tells me to,” he agrees, sockets narrowing, browbone furrowing slightly, like he's trying to puzzle out the subtext of what Sans is actually asking. “i mean, he doesn't help me or anything, but— “  
  
Again, Sans cuts him off at the pass, because he's starting to feel the faint pulse of nausea in his belly. The sensation grows heavier, thicker, acid on the back of his tongue with every word out of his wretched little twin's mouth.   
  
The whiskey isn't sitting so well anymore.  
  
The worst part of it, the absolute most heartbreaking aspect of this whole entire fucked-up affair is the complete confusion on the other sans's face. He seems...bewildered, almost, like he doesn't understand how something so rote and ordinary could be a problem. Like it has never once occurred to him that hosing himself down _outside_ in _below-freezing temperatures_ might not entirely make sense.  
  
He would have done it. Would have walked barefoot and shivering into the snow, would have just...limped through the inn naked as the day he was born, if Sans had only _asked_.  
  
(He can picture it, too, with all that automatic cruelty of his overactive imagination. He can practically see the deep, humiliated flush on his twin's cheekbones, can see it spreading down the hunched column of his vertebrae to the narrow, cracked expanse of his sternum. The other sans would shuffle awkwardly down the stairs on his malformed feet, probably, tail dragging limp and lifeless behind him. Maybe he'd even tuck it between his legs, like the dog he seems so wholly convinced he is.   
  
He'd keep his eyelights down, definitely, keep them fixed pointedly on his own toes so he didn't have to look at any other monster he might pass.   
  
He'd be shivering from shame and cold and the persistent prickle of his own sweat, but he'd do it if Sans told him to, without question.  
  
Sans is _absolutely_ gonna be sick.)  
  
“Okay,” he says, faintly, a little surprised at how even it comes out. “Okay, well, uh—I'd prefer it if you'd use the tub, huh? I think Sonja would, too, they don't really love guests wandering around the place half-dressed.” He makes a vague kind of gesture towards the small bathroom's door, tipped invitingly ajar by some clever member of the cleaning staff. “And, um, hot water and epsom salt? It'll help with the aches. Please use it.”  
  
It's an order. He knows it's an order before he even says it, no matter how much gentle, stumbling suggestion he might cushion it in. He's military, after all, even if he mostly manages to leave that part of himself at work, even if he's mostly learned to keep it away from Papyrus. He knows it's not out of anything but blind, somewhat desperate obedience that the other sans slinks into the bathroom, taking only the white bag of the aforementioned salt from the basket of supplies.   
  
He leaves the rest of it untouched. Doesn't even grab a towel.  
  
Sans waits until he hears the creak of the taps turning on, the gentle groan of water rushing though old pipes before murmuring, largely to himself, “God _dammit,_ Gaster.”  
  
The name leaves the faintest tang of ozone in his mouth. Makes something just behind his sockets _itch_.   
  
He doesn't say it again.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
“What are these?”  
  
It's the first thing his twin has said in nearly ten minutes, but sans has been bracing himself for it the entire time, so he doesn't actually flinch. Doesn't pull away from the small white hands running a washcloth gently over his cracked ribs, scrubbing weeks of grime from the pitted bone. He's a little proud of that, which. Shouldn't be a thing, probably? People bathe their pets all the time. It's cold outside. What the other Sans has asked of him here isn't _weird_.  
  
“huh?” he mutters, blinking sleepily up at his counterpart. One hand has paused at his clavicle, a single blunt claw raking over the faint tick-marks just below his jawbone, shallow, barely-visible grooves in the scarred surface of his upper cervical vertebrae. Most of them have nearly been obscured by the smooth band where his collar usually sits, but there are a handful notched high enough that they're (apparently) still noticeable up close.  
  
He lifts one shoulder and lets it fall in an apathetic kind of half-shrug. “Pap was practicing,” is all he offers, eyelights flicking to the bare expanse of the other Sans's neck in the v of his unzipped hoodie. There are no marks there at all, he realizes, not even when he squints, which...shouldn't make any sense, right? The other Sans holds some kind of rank, he's pretty sure, considering the heavy chestplate he'd seen the kid buckle on before heading out to work, but.   
  
There's no way he's _never_ lost a fight. Even Undyne has a few marks, and she's terrifying.  
  
“I don't have any idea what that means,” his twin says softly. He's still kind of rubbing at the scars too, absent, though his gaze is fixed on sans's.   
  
“you...when you lose a fight, the winner gets to, y'know.” He flicks one hand sharp at the underside  
of his jaw, this unmistakable little slashing motion, though his smile dims somewhat when he realizes the kid has gone deathly still. “uh. you guys don't do that here, do you?”  
  
He knows the answer before he's even finished the question, just from the way the other Sans's eyelights swell huge and horrified in his sockets. “No,” the kid breathes, low, like it's been kicked out of him. “No, we don't—what the _fuck_. No, we don't _cut each other_ when we lose _sparring matches_.”  
  
“well, when you say it like _that,”_ sans snaps, maybe a little more waspishly than he intends, because he's— shit, he's done it _again_ , he's coaxed that _look_ out of his twin, that awful blend of pity and something that wells miserably in the back of sans's throat, chokes what little air he has out of him. He's said something wrong, something crazy, something that abruptly demonstrates to his counterpart the sharp divide between them. Like his ruined face isn't enough of a goddamn reminder. “look, that was—not even a thing, okay? that was years ago. Papyrus was a kid. don't...don't make a big deal out of it or whatever.”  
  
“No, sure, wouldn't want to make a big deal out of the lines your baby brother carved into your neck,” his twin snarls, grabbing the soap from its holder with more force than sans thinks is strictly necessary. “Or whatever.”  
  
sans flinches before he manages to catch himself. “i didn't, no, i'm— “  
  
“Please,” the other Sans says, “don't apologize. I'm _really_ done with listening to apologies tonight, okay? I'm tired, you're tired, we're both being assholes, so...how about we just shut up for a few minutes and you turn around so I can get your back? Thank you,” he murmurs when sans moves immediately to comply. “Look, I'm not trying to be a dick. You...man, you throw me with that shit sometimes, you know? It's just, it's _really_ hard to imagine Papyrus—my Papyrus—doing anything even close to what yours did.”  
  
And if he'd asked, sans could have explained it easily. If he'd really wanted to know, if he'd done more than sigh heavily and rub at sans's scapula with slow, soothing strokes, sans could have pointed out that really, it's just that his Papyrus doesn't _have_ to.   
  
This Papyrus, sleepy-eyed and sad as he might be, still has one hell of a short fuse. He's got that bruising potential living somewhere in him, too, sans knows it, no matter how deep he might have buried it under well-worn hoodies and the constant reek of tobacco. sans has _seen_ it. It's in the clench of those blunt teeth around the gnawed end of an unlit cigarettes, it's in the furious snap of his blazing left eye and the way his claws had hooked deep enough into sans's jawbone to hurt, if only just barely.  
  
_You_ _just_ _haven't done anything to deserve it yet_ , he wants to say. _That's_ _all_.  
  
He doesnt, of course.   
  
He just ducks his head when he's told to, and lifts each limb as requested and watches the tiny rivulets of water streaming down his own chest, mute, until they finally run clean and clear.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so many issues, sans thinks he's a pet, dehumanization(?) what am i even doing with my life anymore
> 
>  
> 
> [ come yell at me on my nsfw tumblr ](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com)
> 
> (next up: Papyrus continues to mope around and maybe finally honeymustard because jesus it's been eighteen chapters now)


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> red scowls at a thomas kincaide. these losers drink too much
> 
> in other news, muffet does not get paid enough for this shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aw you guys, thank you so much all for your feedback. I appreciate each and every one of you--you keep my lazy ass churning this trash party out. 
> 
> I promised you honeymustard. I...did not precisely promise you comfort.

sans can't sleep.  
  
Not that that's particularly unusual or anything. He's intimately familiar with the nauseous buzz of adrenaline in whatever passes for his veins, blank minutes dragging into hours as he stares dully at the facing wall.  
  
The ugliest painting he's ever seen in his entire life is hung smack-dab in the middle of it, some weird oil monstrosity of flowers and a tiny cabin flooded with warm light. The colors don't make any sense, all these too-bright, jewel tone greens and pinks he's never seen in any proximity to each other. The whole mess is corralled in a gaudy gold frame that somehow manages to be more offensive than the inane picture itself. He's willing to bet there's one like it in every single room.   
  
sans has been glaring holes into it for the last hour at least, and it hasn't had the decency to burst into flame yet.  
  
Pity.  
  
Behind him, stocky little body curled into a warm comma against sans's own bruised spine, his doppelgänger makes a soft noise and shifts closer. One hand—and he doesn't think it's totally conscious, the kid usually asks permission when he's awake—settles against the flare of sans's hipbone, just above the elastic of his sweatpants.  
  
sans doesn't flinch.   
  
He's getting better at this.  
  
“Y' still up?” the other Sans murmurs against the back of his skull. The warm breath tickles, his voice low and rough with sleep. sans just shrugs.  
  
“go back to sleep,” he growls as gently as he can manage. His counterpart heaves a quiet, long-suffering sigh.  
  
“M'kay,” is all he says, though, and wriggles minutely closer, pushing his face into the back of sans's neck. “Talk in the morning?”  
  
He's asleep again before sans manages to unstick his metaphorical tongue from the roof of his mouth long enough to answer.   
  
That, weirdly, after this whole entire terrible goddamn day, is what clinches it. That is the thing that twists the panic in his not-stomach enough that he abruptly _cannot_ be in this room anymore, _cannot_ be huddled in bed with the same monster that asks all these horrible, pointed questions, like he knows _precisely_ the depths to which sans's fevered thoughts sink when left to their own devices.   
  
Like he can see into sans's busted skull, somehow, like he's already got answers to all those questions and he's inexplicably trying to give sans room to explain himself.  
  
Somehow, it manages to be _just_ enough rope to hang himself with.  
  
He doesn't know how his doppelgänger manages to even touch him, after what had happened in Waterfall, never mind cuddling with him in his sleep. Doesn't know how he'd stomached the bath, doesn't know how he had gently dried sans off afterwards before bundling him into clean clothes that only hung a little bit strangely on sans's comparatively smaller frame.   
  
Doesn't know how Sans can _look_ at him, after—   
  
(That first time with Papyrus, sans had...what had he done?   
  
He hadnt stayed, afterwards. He doesn't know much, but he knows _that_ , remembers pulling his jacket back on with fingers shaking too badly to manage the zipper. He remembers studying his brother's slack, snoring form in the dusky not-light of some stranger's bedroom, skull still ringing with the incessant throb of bass from the party downstairs and Papyrus's slurred _but you're not scared of me either_ and if he's being honest, he remembers knocking his shin against the railing as he stumbled downstairs but not a whole lot after.  
  
But there had been liquor at the party, and weed, and whatever pills that green-eyed kid had been passing out, whatever he'd put in that drink that still had sans feeling flushed, swollen, this impossible heat thrumming all across the surface of his bones, even as his stomach ties itself neatly into knots, so. It's not hard to put the pieces together, really.  
  
He'd woken up the next morning sprawled over half a leather footrest, legs dangling on the filthy carpet and back aching from the strange position, to an unfamiliar living room full of unconscious teenagers asleep on every available flat surface. Also, the absolute worst headache he'd ever had, like a fuckin' ice pick right to his sinus cavity, even the rasp of his claws on the carpet far too loud.  
  
In the light of day, every single one of the bodies littered around him looked way the fuck too young to be there. He's ashamed to admit he didn't check upstairs before he gathered his jacket and his shirt—both pillowed under the head of this lanky, muscular rabbit girl that looks oddly familiar, even with her features slack in sleep—and stepped _out_ of there, into the cool and quiet of Papyrus's empty bedroom back home.   
  
He didn't collect his brother and drag him back to their house and cook him an enormous breakfast to counteract the massive hangover he was sure to have. Didn't force water and painkillers on him. Didn't offer him an ice pack and punch him gently on the shoulder and ask why he didn't make it home last night, _pal, you make a friend at the party? She got a name?_  
  
Didn't even muss up Papyrus's bed to make it look like he'd been sleeping in it, just in case Gaster spontaneously decided to sprout some unlikely paternal instinct.  
  
He didn't do anything Papyrus's _actual_ brother would have done, in short. Instead, he just pulled his clothes back on and curled up on his cushion at the foot of Papyrus's bed. Instead, he screwed his sockets shut and tried to talk himself into sleeping. Tried to talk his trembling bones into stilling.  
  
He was still rattling faintly a full three hours later, though, when the bedroom door creaked open and bleary, irritated red eyelights fixed on him.   
  
“You're...still here,” Papyrus said, brow wrinkled like he couldn't entirely process what that meant. His cheek had swollen badly in the night, maybe from the way he'd passed out curled up on his side. sans should have turned him over before he left, probably.  
  
“yeah,” is all he said, though, and if Papyrus at all noticed the way he spit the word out like it had gone sour, he didn't comment.)  
  
  
  
—so. He gently disentangles himself from his doppelgänger, and he just...goes for a walk. That's fine, right? That's normal. He needs some air. He needs some _space_.  
  
He takes Sans's wallet with him, with only the faintest pang of guilt as he shoves it into his pocket.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
“Well hey there, sunshine, it's so good to— _oh_.” Muffet draws up sharp, a good foot away from him, four arms that had been reaching for a warm hug poised in the air, awkward as a marionette whose puppeteer had just gone on a badly-timed break. She blinks all five big, oil-slick eyes at him and drops her hands back down to her sides. He can't help but notice that her sixth set of fingers have been polishing the same spot on a shot glass frantically for the last twenty seconds or so. “It's you.”  
  
“yeah,” he mutters in the general direction of the floor. “sure is. sorry 'bout that.”  
  
Her brows crease, three of her hands fluttering in the air, as though waving away the very thought. “Oh, no, honey—no, it's good to see you up and about! You just surprised me, is all. You looking for Papyrus?”  
  
Which—he doesn't _think_ he is, not on any real conscious level, but it's not like he doesn't know that the guy practically lives here. Not like it's precisely a surprise to follow Muffet's pointed finger to a faded orange lump of hoodie slumped miserably over what looks alarmingly like eight empty glasses.   
  
“well fuck me,” he mutters and Muffet must catch it because she laughs, a high, startled bark of a thing.  
  
“Yeahhhhh,” she says. “He's been like that all night. Haven't been able to get a word out of him besides 'Sans' and 'left,' but hey, it's not exactly rocket science to puzzle it out from there, right? You staying with Sans at the Inn?”  
  
“yeah,” sans husks out. “yeah, he—he left a note, he said he didn't want Papyrus to worry— “  
  
“...and if he thought that would make a difference, he doesn't know Papyrus very well at all,” she says softly. She sounds maybe almost a little sad.   
  
She...has a point though, he thinks.  
  
The really odd thing is, her bar looks almost _exactly_ like Grillby's inside. There's a couple minor changes, obviously. The scarred wood of the bartop is stained a deep, rich purple instead of the familiar cherry, for one, and the walls are covered with red velvet instead of scribbled graffiti. The place is darker than he's used to, but the barstools are padded, exponentially more comfortable than what his aching bones are used to, so those almost cancel out. There's even a small stage in the corner, still, but it's decked out in heavy curtains instead of half-broken Gryftmas lights—not really suitable for a band to set up probably, he thinks.   
  
“Oh, c'mon,” Papyrus slurs up at him, one eye socket just barely cracking open as sans drops bodily onto the barstool next to him. sans pointedly ignores him, busying himself instead with arranging his tail out behind him so it just barely skims the floorboards. “you fuckin' serious? Why. _Why_ are you here.”  
  
“free Underground,” sans snipes back. “and i needed a goddamn break from your brother's attempts to smother me in my sleep.”  
  
That at least surprises a warm little chuckle out of his brother's counterpart, though Papyrus doesn't move at all from where he's pillowed his skull on folded arms. “Yeah,” he sighs, sounding very nearly wistful. “Yeah, he does that. He's a weird little dude, huh?”  
  
“he's _your_ brother.”  
  
“I mean, he's also technically _you_ ,” Papyrus points out smugly. A touch too loudly. “I bet you like it too, you asshole.”  
  
sans doesn't get the chance to do anything more than roll his eyelights at that though, since Muffet interrupts them a bit too forcefully with a rapidfire, all-in-one-breath “ _Hello_ _how are you today what can I get for you.”_  
  
“whiskey!” sans says quickly, startled. “whatever's cheap.” He fishes the wallet out of his pocket and flips it open to count the small cache of gold stuffed into the zippered pocket. “and, uh, make it a double? please,” he remembers to tack on only half a beat too late. She gives him this tiny quirk of a smile, winks her two leftmost eyes, and busies herself pouring the drink.  
  
Papyrus squints at him. “That's...Sans's wallet. Did you—did you steal my brother's wallet?”  
  
“no,” sans lies, absently thumbing through his counterpart's (frankly ridiculous) collection of ID cards. “...totally unrelated, why does he have three library cards?”  
  
“Come on,” Papyrus growls at him. “Just put it on my tab, okay? My brother works hard, man.”  
  
“what, and you don't?”  
  
“Fuck knows,” Papyrus agrees, scowl easing into that sleepy smile again as sans holds his hand up, palms-out in a gesture of defeat. He actually lifts his nearly-empty glass to clink against the squat one Muffet sets down between sans's elbows and throws the rest of his drink back before telling her, “S'all on me, Muff. Don't you dare take his money.”  
  
Muffet sighs, but makes no real protest beyond, “Oh, and I was _this_ close to actually making some kind of profit off of you tonight. Pity.”   
  
Which, that's a weird parallel too, because that means Papyrus has a tab here that he never pays off, same way sans has one back home in a record book Grillby probably doesn't even _keep—_  
  
—but his skull still feels like it's stuffed too full to really think about any of that, like it's swollen near to bursting, and, well. About three rounds in Papyrus leans to whisper _hey, i've still got a j in my pocket if you wanna meet me in the bathroom in ten?_ in this low, syrupy kind of slur that goes straight to sans's gut like a brick to the goddamn stomach, sharp, hot and sudden, just like the whiskey had.  
  
_okay_ , he says, which is the important part. And that's about the point it stops mattering so much, anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> referenced noncon as always, Pap is not good at anything, referenced drug use, drinking, bad coping mechanisms
> 
> does this count as a first date 
> 
>  
> 
> i'm counting it


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> honeymustard only grosser

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i mean look i know my update schedule is so bad, but look i got you like 5,000 words of upsetting porn so do i get points for that????
> 
>  
> 
> please come yell at me about this absolute dumpster fire at [ my NSFW tumblr](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com) or about literally anything else at [my SFW tumblr](http://vstheworld.tumblr.com)

The second the bathroom door clicks closed, sans is just—shit, he doesn't even miss a beat, he's just _on_ Papyrus.  
  
Okay, not the exact second, maybe, because Muffet's place is mostly clean but it's still a dive bar. Papyrus still has to fumble for several long moments with the deadbolt, has to shove one knee into the warped door _hard_ , just to push it closed enough to actually latch it.  
  
That, the bare few heartbeats he spends making sure they're not awkwardly interrupted during the process of hotboxing the tiny room, is apparently enough to wear through sans's paper-thin patience. He's shoved up against Papyrus's back before the lock even slides fully into place, those small, damaged hands flicking open the top button of his jeans with an unnerving ease.  
  
sans isn't shaking this time, at least, and the breath Papyrus can feel against his spine through the thick cotton of his hoodie is hot, heavy, but something almost approaching even. His voice doesn't waver when he murmurs, “hey, d'you want me to...?”  
  
Papyrus doesn't get a chance to find out what was going to follow that, fortunately. He manages to catch sans's wrists before he even makes it to the zipper. “Fuckin' _quit it_ ,” Papyrus snaps, scowling down at him, and sans is only two (?) drinks in, maybe but he makes this little noise in the back of his throat that Papyrus isn't totally sure what to do with. His eyelights are kinda fucked too, wider than Papyrus has seen them yet. They flicker, erratic, like a bad Gryftmas bulb about to go out entirely.  
  
Papyrus lets go. Takes a step back, though there's not much distance in the cramped bathroom to put between them in the first place.  
  
“Ain't what I brought you in here for,” he mumbles, patting absently at his pockets for his lighter. “Man, it's like everything I fuckin' say, you hear somethin' completely different.”  
  
His brother's double—and no, nope, that is _not_ a train of thought he needs to board right now, not when it still twists so vicious at his stomach—cocks his head to the side a few degrees, eye sockets narrowing. “no,” he says eventually, just as Papyrus finally locates the joint in his front pocket.  
  
It's a little bent, but Papyrus sticks the crutch between his teeth regardless, since lighting the thing at least gives him something to do with his useless hands. sans scuffs at the dirty tile with one clawed foot (no shirt, no shoes, no service his _ass_ ) and continues with, “it ain't what you _say_ , you dick. look at you—you're wound so fuckin' tight, even when you're totally shitfaced. it's almost impressive, actually, I thought _my_ Papyrus had problems— “  
  
“I said _stop_ ,” Papyrus snarls. He's taking half a step towards the kid before he really registers it, blue smoke hissing out between his teeth as he lets out a deep, furious breath. To his immense credit, the guy doesn't really flinch back like he's expecting, doesn't cringe and curl up at the venom in Papyrus's voice, though he does snap his mangled mouth shut and flick his eyelights over to rest on the chipped sink, safely away from Papyrus.  
  
He takes the joint when it's offered, though, takes an impressive draw—nothing like his own brother's hesitant pulls, barely half a hit before he's coughing his not-lungs out like a babybones while Papyrus fights to keep a straight face—and lets it hitch in his chest for a long moment before he exhales.  
  
It spirals up out of his shirt collar, between the notches in his teeth,  
in thick, lazy curlicues. He rolls his neck to the side and groans, eye sockets drooping half-closed lazily. He sucks in another deep breath, inhales some of his own secondhand smoke. He looks nearly like might be trying to smile this time.  
  
“aw, man, that's _good_ ,” he sighs, offering it back clasped loose between two wicked claws. “even if you got a goddamn filter on it, princess,” he chuckles, though it doesn't sound quite as derogatory as he'd probably intended. “you worried about it fucking up your pretty voice?”  
  
“Oh, let me guess,” Papyrus tosses back as he retrieves the joint, rolling his eyelights. “You're probably, what...packing spliffs made out of cigarettes you knocked over a liquor store for, huh? Or, or, maybe you took 'em off some guy you mugged 'cause you're _so goddamn edg_ y. You know, I don't actually have to share this with you.”  
  
That earns him a slow blink, and the tiniest upwards quirk of that static smile, something warm and almost fond in his blown-out eyelights “no, hey, don't get your panties in a bunch, _bud_ ,” he snorts.  
  
It takes Papyrus an embarrassingly long time to catch it. It's the entire duration of sans's next hit and halfway through his own when it finally clicks and when it does, he abruptly sputters, chokes on sheer outrage. Coughs, a deep, racking thing that doesn't sound quite as bad as the pack-a-day habit he's been chipping slowly into pack-and-a-half. Wheezes, “Oh my god. Oh my god, was that a _pun?”_  
  
sans actually laughs at that. Not the cruel little chuckles Papyrus has heard out of him before, either—it's this rough bark of a thing, loud, sharp and startling in the echo of the cramped bathroom. It tapers off in a somewhat reasonable timeframe too, which is a pleasant surprise, leaving sans wiping faintly-pink tears of mirth from his eye sockets, snickering quietly to himself. “ahhhh, i'm guessin' you don't like those much either, do ya, boss?”  
  
Papyrus doesn't really bother protesting the nickname this time. It's different when he says it like that, somehow, with a faint mocking twist to his mouth. And anyways, there's a lit cherry still burning its way steady towards his claws, so. He sort of has other things to worry about.  
  
Another deep drag on the thing, maybe a little more than what he'd actually coughed out in horror at sans's terrible sense of humor, one more hit and... he also doesn't protest it when sans shifts towards him the next time he reaches for the joint. Conveniently, sans then forgets entirely to shift away.  
  
“hey,” he murmurs instead, tipping his skull at an odd angle to fix one eyelight on Papyrus. “you know i'm not—it ain't like we're _actually_ related.” He lifts his shoulder in an apathetic attempt at a shrug. “it's not that weird.”  
  
Papyrus, for a long, blank second, has absolutely no idea what to say. Not a  
single coherent sentence comes  
to mind. It's not a condition that strikes him often, as he's quite practiced at filling radio silence with vapid bullshit on his brother's quiet days, but this? This is not something he'd been prepared for. This is not at _all_ how he'd envisioned this going.  
  
“I,” he starts and has no plan for what's going to follow. “That's. Um.”  
  
“i'm sayin' i can...help you feel better, maybe,” his brother's doppelgänger murmurs, a charming heat creeping crimson across the (surprisingly clean) angles of his cheekbones. “it's gotta wear you out, huh, keepin' that....” Here he trails off, waves one hand vaguely in Papyrus's direction as if trying to encompass the whole of him with the gesture. “i dunno, keepin' all that cheery shit up for him. keepin' him _happy._ doesn't it make you tired?”  
  
His grin curls impossibly wider, this slick, crooked thing, worlds divorced from the frantic way he'd stared up at Papyrus from between his femurs that very first awful night. “i can be pretty helpful if you wanna blow off a little steam. i scratch your back, you scratch mine kinda thing, yeah?”  
  
And he just, he takes another hit off the dwindling joint, casual as can be, like the offer is nothing, which.  
  
Maybe it isn't, for him. Maybe, the same way the weed eases the apparent constant, trembling terror of his every waking moment, Papyrus's big hands bracketing the scarred expanse of his ribcage would help to ground him.  
  
Maybe that grin is actually the invitation it looks like, because this is...this is different than the way he'd barely been able to look at Papyrus before. Different than the way he'd been shaking, the wretched tremor to his voice, the tiny _you don't have to like m_ e, as though that's the best possible scenario, like a sort of bored disinterest is just brand standard for his bedmates.  
  
Papyrus actually has a pretty sudden chance to test this theory, like it or not, since sans doesn't actually bother waiting for him to agree. sans instead shoves that tiny frame right into the hollow of Papyrus's chest, situates himself so he's got one leg pushed between Papyrus's, his eye sockets narrowed to lazy slits as he exhales the remnants of his  
last hit directly into Papyrus's stunned face. “chill,” he murmurs. “i don't wanna _talk_ about it or anything, okay? that's the only rule, you don't—i don't wanna hear your opinions on it.”  
  
“Okay,” Papyrus says, because that sounds like a whole slew of questions he doesn't ever want to ask. “Sure. Whatever you want.”  
  
He does it to himself, really.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
sans is unexpectedly talkative during, all things considered.  
  
Oh, he grunts when Papyrus's knee shifts unkindly against his pelvis and he gives a pretty little sob when Papyrus's clumsy fingers finally manage to work their way under the waistband of his borrowed sweatpants. He twists in place and pants out some attempt at Papyrus's name as one hand wraps tight around the wavering form of his magic. It's much warmer to the touch than the cool lines of his pelvis, anyways, burning bright and pink and hot and already a little bit slick, though its shape remains malleable, indeterminate, as though sans himself hasn't quite decided on the itinerary here yet.  
  
“You okay?” Papyrus growls, gently as he can manage as the kid gives a soft little cry and bucks into the cradle of Papyrus's broad palm.  
  
“y-yeah,” he husks, spitting it out between gritted teeth. His small hands clutch at thick handfuls of warm cotton, claws sunk deep into the sleeves of Papyrus's hoodie. Probably tearing holes in it, the little shit, if the ragged canvas of sans's discarded jacket is anything to go by. “i just, i don't—what do you _want_?”  
  
Papyrus blinks at him. “Huh?”  
  
“oh, don't play that game,” he snarls. “dick, pussy—c'mon, sunshine, you gotta tell me what should I be working with here.” He grinds down, kind of, a strangely fluid motion for such a twitchy monster, though Papyrus's hand has gone deathly still between his legs. Possibly, sans mistakes the ensuing silence for indecision because he groans and does it again harder, this time hissing, “what do you _like,_ Papyrus?”  
  
“Did....your brother teach you to do that?” is all Papyrus manages to ask, the sound of his full name in that gruff voice jarring enough to knock him somewhat off-balance. He fixes his eyelights firmly on a particularly ugly smear of neon-blue graffiti just over sans's left shoulder because he figures that's got to be exponentially better then watching the kid's browbone wrinkling in confusion.  
  
“do _what_ ,” sans snaps and for all the world it sounds like the same waspish, nasty tone he's been gracing them with ever since Muffet had pulled him from that dumpster. It's steady, low, very nearly convincing, but Papyrus can actually _feel_ the distressed way sans's magic kind of shifts between his own lax fingers, nervous.  
  
“I don't....I don't, uh, usually switch 'em off like that,” Papyrus offers in what he hopes is a light tone, none of the sucking black horror in his chest creeping into his voice because that's...well... _shit_.  
  
That's worse than Papyrus had been expecting, honestly, and it's not like he'd really had high hopes to begin with here. Figured there was no way sans had a healthy understanding of how this was supposed to work at all, but he also hadn't been expecting the kid to be so far gone that his own body doesn't even remember how to adapt itself to what _he_ wants, rather than what his partner's expecting. It shouldn't be something he has to choose, shouldn't be something he even really has to think about, and it sure as hell shouldn't be contingent on Papyrus's orders. “Don't think most folk do.”  
  
“well don't _you_ know how to make a girl feel special,” sans deadpans, still without looking at Papyrus, but his small shoulders hitch up, just a bit. “but fine, fine, let's try this instead—you ever been with a guy before?”  
  
Mute, cheekbones gone a deep (possibly humiliating) tangerine, Papyrus shakes his head.  
  
“welp,” sans says brightly, clapping his hands together for emphasis, “i sure as hell ain't letting you learn how to drive stick for the first time on _me_ , then.” He pushes at Papyrus, determined, shoves at the center of his sternum until he stumbles back a couple steps and drops onto the—fortunately closed—toilet seat, nearly tripping over his own untied laces in the process. Sticks the joint between Papyrus's slack teeth. “breathe, kiddo,” he chuckles, clapping a hand to Papyrus's shoulder in what he probably means to be a reassuring gesture, but just kind of comes off creepily fraternal instead. “just relax.”  
  
And Papyrus obeys. He sucks in a thick chestful of smoke, but he's not entirely certain that'll help with the second part at all. Because sans is unzipping that heavy jacket now, he's stripping off the too-white shirt beneath with an ease that can only come from _way_ too much practice. He's pushing the grey sweatpants—definitely not his, there's a neat line of stitching in the left leg that Papyrus recognizes as his own from that one time Sans had fallen out of a tree in their backyard and nope, he is _absolutely not thinking about that now_ —down his legs, over the strange animal flexing of those feet. He's only dimly aware that he hasn't exhaled yet when sans settles himself in Papyrus's lap, one knee to either side of his hips, arms slotted over the tense lines of Papyrus's collarbones like the space had been carved out precisely for that purpose.  
  
It's an unfamiliar feeling, to say the least, the weight and the warmth of another body against his, especially with cold porcelain biting at his tailbone through his jeans. He doesn't really know what to do with his hands here at all, has no idea if he's supposed to be looking at sans's damp, flushed face or not, so he settles for awkwardly bracing one hand on sans's relatively unbruised left hip, offering the remainder of the joint to him with the right.  
  
There's not much to it anymore, little more than the crutch remaining, so he's not entirely surprised that sans doesn't reach for it.  
  
He _is_ somewhat taken aback, though, when sans seizes his wrist and tugs that hand forward to crush the cherry of the joint out against his own collarbone.  
  
It has to hurt, but he doesn't flinch at all. Doesn't react, not even when Papyrus jerks back like he'd been the one burned instead, dropping the still-smoldering roach-end to the floor. His eyelights fly up to meet his not-brother's, probably blown wide in horror, which improves not at all when he actually sees the look on the guy's face.  
  
“ _yeah.”_ sans breathes the word like it's a benediction, like there's a weight to it on his tongue, his voice hushed and wrecked and reverent. His sockets actually slip closed, skull lolling back in apparent relief for a brief moment. It's...jesus, it's like a switch has been flipped, like all the tension, all that nervous barbed-wire energy has been bled right out of him through the angry red welt blistering to life on his chest.  
  
Papyrus wasn't the first one to get there with this particular weapon of choice, apparently, though the faint marks of the old scars are all much smaller than his. They're also stamped perfectly, weirdly round, like...cigarettes, maybe. Like someone put nearly an entire pack of cigarettes out on his _ribs_.  
  
Although shit, with way he's smiling? With what Papyrus had just witnessed? With the fact that sans is looking him straight in the eyes for maybe the first time since they've met, even as he's guiding Papyrus's free hand between his legs?  
  
Maybe...maybe he'd done it to himself.  
  
He's wet already, Papyrus registers only vaguely as his numb fingers slip into the slick heat between those pretty pink lips. He's wetter than Papyrus had known a monster could get, actually, though...in his own defense, he doesn't exactly have a wealth of experience to compare it to. It could just be his misanthropic nature speaking there.  
  
Anyways, Undyne _probably_ isn't a good benchmark of the typical girl, especially since she'd sworn off boys about ten minutes after she'd come, complete with guilty wringing of her hands and an apologetic stammer and, bizzarely, the gift of a gaming system he had been eyeing for several months prior.  
  
Which. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that, right? Right.  
  
“easier this way, too,” sans is explaining and it wrenches Papyrus abruptly back to the present, though the words are in almost a busted eight-count, panted between ragged little intakes of breath. “unless you happen to carry lube on you.”  
  
Papyrus doesn't answer. Instead, he crooks his fingers a little at the second pass, rubs up and over the tight nub of sans's clit. That seems to surprise him, almost, wrenching a startled jerk of his hips and an intriguing little yelp from the back of his nonexistent throat.  
  
It's not too terribly difficult to put together what what _that_ means, especially as sans works himself down on those two broad fingers, enveloping them in a wet velvet of the steadiest, brightest magic Papyrus has seen from him yet. He doesn't do a thing in response, doesn't pull away, doesn't even breathe properly for fear he'll startle the guy right back into his usual prickly, stubborn stance.  
  
He just kinda lets sans's pelvis rest in the v between his forefinger and thumb and watches, wide-eyed as the kid's cunt swallows those fingers right up to the last joint. Watched as he sinks himself onto them _hard_ and then keeps right the fuck on going, grinding down in clear, wordless demand for more. It nudges his clit right up against the base of Papyrus's thumb and he hisses at the contact, stammers out a, “please, _please_ , c-can i—”  
  
Which...what the fuck is he supposed to say to that, huh? It's the calmest the guy has looked in weeks, the closest to content he's maybe capable of getting and...look, okay, no one's touched Papyrus in _years_ so he can maybe be excused for the fact that he just nods absently. Well, nods and shifts his thumb against the faintly-buzzing magic as requested, presses hard enough into the false flesh that he thinks Undyne might have smacked him for trying that same maneuver on her, even at the tender, inexperienced age of sixteen.  
  
sans moans like it's his profession, though, and rocks into the touch with a grateful, “ohhhhh you sonuvabitch, you— mother _fucker,_ ah, don't you dare stop— “  
  
Up close that burn, Papyrus observes, _really_ looks like it hurts. It's red, swollen, a crest of charred black where the ash had seared into him. It _has_ to still be throbbing, must be sending little shockwaves of white-hot pain all down the curve of his chest especially where it's pressed against Papyrus's own but still, he growls, “c'mon, _harder,_ you can do better than that _—”_  
  
“You're _insane_ ,” he dimly hears himself say and sans gives that loud crow of laugher again, one busted hand drifting up to his own collarbone to wrap his small fingerbones over the mark. Papyrus watches, half-fascinated, half-nauseated, as he presses the sharp tips of his claws into the burn, hissing out something gutteral and pleased between his teeth.  
  
“probably,” sans allows. “but you can't—yeah, _right_ _fucking_ _there—_ you can't exactly tell me that's a dealbreaker for you.”  
  
Which. The world has been warm and thrumming unevenly for the last two hours or so. This, as a result, is very nearly overwhelming to his stuttering senses—sans is too close, too warm, too _much_ , and his breath reeks of whiskey when he leans in to shove his nasal cavity right up against Papyrus's.  
  
“i saw you,” he almost purrs, though there's a gravel edge to his voice that's _just_ unfamiliar enough, _just_ dissimilar enough from his actual brother's that Papyrus mostly doesn't feel weird about the way his useless breath stutters in his chest at the sound. “i saw the way you looked at me in the shed.”  
  
That, somehow, jolts black heat lightning across Papyrus's wavering vision, snaps his brows together. A short, clipped, “Excuse me?” stumbles out of his mouth before he really gives himself time to wonder if he wants to know the implications of that particular gem. “The fuck are you trying to say?”  
  
“i know what i'd do, if i were you,” sans says too easily, shrugging one bruised shoulder even as his claws fumble with Papyrus's zipper. And it's saying something, isn't it, that even as sans is pulling his cock from the confines of his questionably-clean clothing, Papyrus's eyelights remain locked, furious pinpricks on that damp, flushed little face.  
  
sans, for his part, does nothing more than tip his head to one side and spit into his hand before he wraps his fingers around Papyrus again. “if someone tried to do to my Papyrus what i tried to do to your Sans...” He chuckles. It's a hollow, bitter thing, though Papyrus is far too neatly sidelined by warm fingerbones dragging slow, lazy strokes along his dick to really catalogue that one properly. “i'd kill 'em,” he says, and clicks those ugly piercings against his false tooth. “guess your coping mechanisms are a little different, though.”  
  
And there's that black spot on his vision again, that molten snarl of rage in the very pit of his soul, jolting through him like an electric current. He wants, with the small part of him still participating in rational thought, to shove sans away. He wants to fling him up against the facing wall and grab him by the throat and _shake_ _him_ for the mere _suggestion_ that he condones what the little creep had tried to do to his brother.  
  
sans, he only suspects later, when he has the time and distance to even attempt wrapping his slow, stupid brain around the day's events, is relatively practiced at solving arguments this way. Papyrus doesn't get out more than, “Oh hey, _fuck_ _you_ —” before the kid's shifting on his lap, lifting those hips just enough to wriggle himself down onto Papyrus's traitorous cock, which remains, much to his chagrin, annoyingly enthused by this turn of events, despite the fact that he sort of wants to punch sans in the face.  
  
This, he also realizes later, _might_ have been entirely what sans had been going for.  
  
Sans makes this...sound, though, this low burnt-sugar burr of approval in the back of his throat and it's suddenly the entire focus of Papyrus's attention because—  
  
Well, because _holy_ _shit_ he's hot and he's wet and he's maybe _almost_ too tight around Papyrus, judging by the faint wince that flickers across his face, though the slick of pink magic eases the way somewhat when he rocks up again and sinks back down with another of those black-molasses groans.  
  
“ _oh_ ,” sans breathes into the minute space between them, and he sounds almost surprised, maybe even a little pleased. He promptly ruins it, of course, by follow that with a sneered, “jesus fuck, would you _move_ already? a big dick don't mean _anything_ if you don't bother learning how to use it.”  
  
“do you ever stop talking?” Papyrus growls, and takes a hold of sans's hipbones for leverage. Doesn't give him any more warning than that before he snaps up _hard_ into the narrow grip of sans's magic, teeth bared at the kid in a vicious kind of grin. It pulls him down onto Papyrus with almost bruising force, enough to kick the breath out of both of them. Enough that Papyrus would bet gold that he's got the marks to show for it in the morning, though he kind of doubts theirs is the sort of relationship that's gonna let them both laugh over beers about this later.  
  
“fuck you. _make_ me,” sans snarls, capping it off with a dumb little smirk. It's a clearly a joke. He says it with this smarmy kind of lilt to his voice, but the knowledge that he's not taking this seriously does nothing at all to temper the thing raging in Papyrus's belly.  
  
To his credit though, he doesn't bite down when Papyrus shoves two fingers into his mouth. Doesn't lash out when he curls dull claws deep into the soft hinge of his jaw 'til sans chokes and gags on them.  
  
He tries valiantly to spit them out, of course, scowling best he can. His nasal cavity wrinkles in disgust at the taste of his own magic, but Papyrus is—has always been—much stronger than him.  
  
And sans isn't a big guy anyways, right, so it's barely any effort to wrap his free hand around both of sans's wrists, to squeeze until the bone creaks warningly against itself. Until he stills, eyelights wild, narrow ribcage heaving with a prey animal's panicked breath. It's barely any effort to keep him there, strung up between that and the hand curled around half his skull, and it's certainly none at all to use those holds as leverage to pull that tiny, tense body down onto his cock.  
  
sans's conjured throat flexes wet around his fingers when he does it, this unconscious little twitch of nervous false muscle. He clearly can't quite manage to produce a real word past the pseudo-gag but he tries anyways, these warm, needy little noises of approval when Papyrus shifts his hips forward and pushes himself upright, sets his sneakers more firmly against the cracked tile floor. Rocks up into the unfamiliar heat of another body until sans is tipped backwards and hung fully in his grip, feet kicking futile at empty air.  
  
“Stop,” Papyrus says. sans looks like he might be trying to stick his tongue out in retaliation. “You're impossible,” Papyrus adds and sans does nothing more than squirm against him, arching his back up insistent as if to remind him of the matter at hand. “See?” Papyrus deadpans to himself. “You've still got this stupid idea you're calling the shots here, huh?”  
  
And _that_ has the exact response he'd predicted. The response he'd wanted the whole time, really, the inevitable thing where sans shudders and lets himself go slack, where his eyelights fuzz out a little bit and he just—drops. He stills. He trembles a little bit, he spreads his legs and he lets Papyrus rub at his clit with saliva-wet fingers without more than a shaky kind of moan of protest, but he's staring blank into the middle distance, like he has no idea where he is. He doesn't say a word. No real argument brooked, no real fight put up, he just—he looks like he's a million miles away. Papyrus is pretty sure he couldn't get off to this no matter _what_ he smoked beforehand, so he just kind of pulls out and settles the kid more firmly in his lap, gently turns him around so he's perched between Papyrus's legs. He runs one clumsy hand along the slack line of sans's femur awkwardly, like he's petting an unfamiliar cat for the very first time.  
  
...a cat that still has his erection pressed up against it, which. _Gross._  
  
sans makes a vague, reedy sound of protest when Papyrus removes his other hand from its post between his legs, though, and—it's only polite, right? It's common fucking courtesy to get his partner off at the _very_ least so he doesn't feel entirely like a predator, so he doesn't have to pass out tonight feeling this goddamn sick at the way sans says his name like he's choking on it.  
  
Papyrus shuts his eyes and tucks the top of sans's cracked skull beneath his chin. The kid runs cold, after all, and he remembers reading once some that it was easier to make someone come when they're warm and relaxed. Not much chance of a strike on both those counts, but hey. One outta two ain't bad, and he figures his stupid, lumbering bulk might finally be good for _something_ here.  
  
sans's back snaps into a rigid parenthese when he comes, a bitten-off groan the only other real indication that anything had happened. He's shoved himself forward into Papyrus's hand the best he can, rutting into the pressure like he doesn't quite know how _not_ to, and Papyrus actually feels the erratic fluttering of phantom muscles against his claws, a near-violent pulsing as the kid shudders his way through the aftershocks.  
  
“Hi there,” a loud voice chirps sunnily from right outside the door. They both start at the sound, jerking upright so fast that sans knocks his skull hard into Papyrus's chin. Papyrus yelps and any residual magic he'd been idly holding on to vanishes in lieu of complete embarrassment.  
  
_Muffet._  
  
“Yeah, hey, so I've been out here for _entirely_ too long and wow, have we learned a whole lot about each other that I don't think we can ever go back from, but here's the thing! I still have another what, four hours of service? So I'm going to give you exactly ten minutes to get your goddamn clothes on and your sorry asses _out_ of my bar, and we're going to act like I'm kicking you out for hotboxing the bathroom. _Again.”_  
  
“Okay,” Papyrus croaks, because he's pretty sure apologizing would set her off like a bad batch of fireworks, and he really doesn't need to have that awkward conversation, like, at _all_. “Thanks, Muff. You're the best.”  
  
“I hate you the _very most_ ,” she singsongs as her heels click-clack away. And then they're alone again, with only their own slowing breath for company.  
  
“well,” sans says to his own feet, with absolutely no inflection, as though he was reciting the score of a game he hadn't watched, possibly for a sport he didn't totally understand, “that, uh. that sure was a thing.”  
  
Papyrus snags his sweatpants with one foot instead of answering, and kicks them towards his brother's doppelgänger. The kid doesn't thank him, but he does tug them on quickly, without even bothering to wipe away the excess magic first. Practically dives for his jacket like he can't wait to be hidden under bulky layers again, even flipping the hood half up against his still-flushed skull.  
  
Doesn't really look at him the whole walk home, which isn't new, but...he sticks closer, maybe, hovers a little more comfortably inside Papyrus's orbit, though he's still careful not to initiate touch. He doesn't even really protest when Papyrus slings a lazy arm across his shoulders and leans heavy like he actually needs the help to walk, even if he has to slouch considerably to even get close to sans's height. sans doesn't complain about the weight, doesn't do more than scowl and look away and sort of shift minutely into the warm comma of his embrace as though he hasn't even noticed he's doing it.  
  
Papyrus notices the bright pink flush across his cheekbones every time—impossible not to with that brilliant shade, especially in the dim nighttime air. He doesn't say anything of course, carefully does not point it out because come on, really—  
  
He's not a _total_ asshole.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> drug use, weed, dumbass stoners hooking up in bathrooms which technically doesn't violate Pap's rules, sans learns to push buttons, fingering, ecto-dick, ecto-cunt, Papyrus is awkward, Papyrus is p inexperienced, sans likes getting burned, masochism, some real bad coping mechanisms, i hope this headcanon about how ectojunk works makes some kind of sense, and once again muffet really absolutely does not get paid enough


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> blue doesn't ship it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so so so you know how i do that thing where i give you something that makes very little sense and we work backwards from there? here you go, we're playing that game again. 
> 
> shoutout to all y'all who commented. thank you, you feed the flames that keeps this trash fire burning and i love you.
> 
> please come shout at me at my [ NSFW ](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com) // [ SFW ](http://vstheworld.tumblr.com) tumblr

You know, all things considered, Sans thinks he's a pretty patient monster.  
  
And now, with his actual history rattling around in his skull, complete if hopelessly out of order, he gets that it's a trait he must have picked up in the labs. Because he's got all the boring stuff now too, doesn't he? He's got countless hours recording the same failed experiments over and over and over until he'd lost all sense of what time it was, what day it was, when he'd last eaten or slept or left the room for anything at all.  
  
Sans was, apparently, _very_ good at his job.  
  
And it's...not okay to think of the other sans's upbringing in the context of his brother, probably, especially because being treated like a constant case study in adolescent psychology is probably exactly _why_ Papyrus is the way he is, but...it's impossible for Sans not to see the correlating data between the two of them.  
  
The sample size is far too small for any real conclusions to be drawn, of course, but it's hardly unpredictable behavior that, like Papyrus, his dented little counterpart does not handle conflict well in the slightest. And if he'd really been paying attention, if he had managed to stop himself being so goddamn self absorbed for a minute, he might have realized that, like Papyrus, the other sans's coping mechanisms tend to center around the closest available intoxicant.  
  
See, Sans has played this game before, nearly too many times to count. He's gotten good at it. He barely needs to do any weight training anymore, because when Papyrus passes out—at Muffet's, on Undyne's living room floor, on the couch _every single night_ instead of in his bed like a normal monster—he passes the hell _out_. It's almost impossible to wake him when he's like that. The few times Sans has managed, Papyrus was muzzy and completely useless, muttering reassurances that he was fine, dude, he was getting up, yes for real this time, even as his eye sockets drooped closed again.  
  
Eventually, Sans just stopped asking permission entirely. He can lift his brother in a almost dignified kind of fireman's carry, anyways, though Papyrus's stupid, lanky legs always kind of trail sadly along the ground when he does.  
  
Papyrus wasn't always so cooperative, though, was he? He wasn't always this lax, passive thing when he drank. He didn't always curl morosely into himself and stare blankly at nothing for long, dragging minutes on end. Didn't drink like he was racing against whatever passed for his own metabolism. Didn't chain-smoke his way through half a pack before he seemed to even realize he was doing it.  
  
Before, back when Papyrus had been somewhat shorter and skinnier, awkward as a puppy in his half-grown body [and Sans had been the exact same size back then, obviously, how the hell had he never noticed that he didn't actually recall growing?] he had also been a vicious drunk.  
  
Never to Sans, of course, never to Alphys or Undyne, or anyone who really mattered to him, but there was this hair-trigger twitch to his jaw still, this tendency for his fingerbones to curl into bruise-knuckled fists. That was a miserable constant in those days, his brother's busted hands, the joints cracked and purpled, though there was never any real way of knowing if he'd broken them open on brick, or another monster's face. Sans never asked.  
  
He had seen it for himself, just once, when Papyrus had been nearly eighteen. Sans had been tasked with fetching him from Muffet's while Gaster worked yet another long night in the lab. It was also the last time he showed up at the bar without a call from Muffet first and the subsequent reassurance that Papyrus had bypassed his own boiling point and tipped into near-unconsciousness instead.  
  
Papyrus had managed to land a somewhat-respectable job at the bar upon graduation, splitting his time between bussing tables and occasionally frog-marching some of the rowdier clientele out the front door. It didn't seem to require much more than his constant, hulking presence, which was a blessing. His brief stint working in the labs with Sans had been worrying for a whole slew of reasons, not the least of which was his seeming inability to remember _anything_ for longer than fifteen minutes or so.  
  
((Now, not-stomach twisted into knots of shame and guilt, Sans finally has the context to understand it. He has the distance and the maturity to really _see,_ with a horrifying new clarity born of almost a decade of watching his brother fall to pieces for no apparent reason.  
  
In restrospect it is so easy to find the marks Gaster had left on him. It's such a simple thing for Sans to see all the hollow spaces where Papyrus still fills the gaps in his own damaged brain with snatches of sentiment that had been kicked into him from an early age, sharp barbs that aren't even originally his, this deep, all-consuming loathing for himself that he will never, ever acknowledge.  
  
Oh, he masks it well enough, sure. He's leaned to cushion the blows with a sharp sense of humor and an apathetic slouch. He's learned to turn it into a self-deprecating jokey kind of thing that makes other monsters laugh, makes him somehow just seem more down-to-earth and approachable, but. There's always, _always_ a recurring theme to it that Sans can't help but catalogue and file away for later.  
  
_Worthless_ had been a favorite of Gaster's. Papyrus generally goes with the somewhat-more-colorful _total_ _piece of shit_ , but the concept's pretty much the same, isn't it?))  
  
The bar had been good for him, mostly. He seemed to like Muffet and she certainly liked him, if the bags of “stale” pastries he always brought home were any kind of indication. He always split them with Sans as he told stories about the regulars in this hushed, conspiratorial whisper, little nuggets of gossip he'd picked up from Sonja, which meant they were usually half-true at best. She always told the stories, though—as did Papyrus, by proxy—with all the violent conviction of an alcoholic's spotty memory.  
  
Even if it was a little weird that some days he only saw his brother for a handful of hours between dinner and bed, Papyrus seemed...better, almost, the days he spent out of the house. Calmer. Less tense. It didn't take a rocket scientist to puzzle that out, necessarily, though it was an embarrassing month before Sans actually finally looked at him and realized that he only had a single visible bruise on his shin, a fading greenish thing that might have actually been accidental. Realized this was the most smooth, unmarred white bone he had ever seen on his brother at one time.  
  
(After that, Sans never once complained on those days when Papyrus texted him much too late that he was picking up some extra hours, sorry for bailing on dinner, and hey, did he mind letting Dad know?  
  
Which he didn't, obviously, because Sans knew enough to bring it up only when the doctor was elbow-deep in case notes. He knew to drop it casually enough into the conversation that he would register it, remember they'd discussed it, but be unable to spare the necessary bandwidth to actually do anything about it. Like most things related to his son, Gaster would file it away for later and eventually forget the matter entirely.  
  
The last time Papyrus had been late without a call first had left the hungry angle of his jawbone a purpled, swollen mess for nearly a week after. The worst Gaster had ever done was snap at Sans, which. His words were cruel, maybe, but they were _nothing_ compared to his hands, nothing compared to the way Papyrus just kind of shook with rage sometimes, his own claws curled into his skull hard enough to bite shallow grooves into bone, spine practically welded into a rigid, unforgiving arch and his voice cracking as he snarled _leave me alone, I don't wanna talk about it, I don't wanna talk to_ you—  
  
—of course Sans didn't mind.)  
  
Papyrus liked the patrons, for the most part, so Sans isn't totally sure what caused it. He only knows that one minute Papyrus had been lounging against the bar, both elbows notched casually back on the scarred wood and a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth like a toothpick. Then there had been this rabbit monster, all legs, miniskirt and ropy biceps, long ears pinned back from her pretty face, pushing herself right into Papyrus's bubble. She touched his elbow without asking first (strike one) leaned in close (two) and whispered _something_ to him _,_ punctuating it with this stupid, drunken little giggle that wouldn't have been out of place on a monster five years her junior (she's _out)._  
  
Papyrus tensed up like she'd bit him. He pulled away from her, even, jerked back until his spine actually met the sharp edge of the bar-top. She seemed to bypass _that_ red flag entirely, taking the opportunity to shift towards him instead. She got right up in his face, _way_ too close for anything approaching comfort though he dwarfed her by nearly a foot, and slid that paw slow up his humerus. She had also, apparently, missed the fact that his eyelights had flickered out into nothing the second she'd made contact. Even at the time, stone-sober and practically squirming in secondhand embarrassment for the girl, Sans hadn't really loved the implications of that at all.  
  
And then Papyrus had just, he hadn't said a thing, he'd just reared back and decked her, which. Suffice to say it got a little crazy after that.  
  
He's not expecting that to apply here, necessarily. But he's been...look, he's really been trying his best with the other sans. He has. He's been more than accommodating, he thinks, more than considerate, tried at every single available opportunity to avoid all those glaring pulse-point triggers that make his twin immediately shrink back into his shell. He tries to remember not to raise his voice, even, though he's not a quiet monster by default, and still—  
  
It isn't the other sans's fault. He knows that. He _knows_ the guy has had this behavior practically coded into him, knows that there's not a snowball's chance in Hotland he had an opportunity to develop any real moral compass, the way he was raised.  
  
_You can do whatever you want with me,_ right? He hadn't even flinched. That's what he's used to, that's what he's expecting, that's...god, Sans doesn't even know where to _start_ with that one.  
  
And okay, so maybe he doesn't quite get where that little stunt back in Waterfall had come from. Maybe he doesn't understand the switch that had been flipped, like, at all _._ Doesn't understand how they'd gotten from the other sans's awful, wordless offer to blow him (process that later, _later,_ no time for it now, you make damn sure there is no time for it now) to those cracked fingerbones clenched tight around his wrists and _this is **h i l a r i o u s**_ and the brief, horrifying jolt when he had looked into his twin's blank eyes and realized there was nothing there. No one home to appeal to. No way to reason his way out of it.  
  
He didn't want to fight his doppelgänger, he really didn't. But he's be lying through his teeth if he said there wasn't the tiniest ripple of satisfaction that fluttered through him when the guy's snarled-up body thudded into that rock face with a choked-out “ _fuck!_ ”  
  
And, he thinks now, as he folds his arms over his chest and stares down the other sans, who's frozen stock-still at the end of the hall with Papyrus's door still halfway open, he'd also probably be lying if he said he didn't kinda want to punch the guy.  
  
Maybe it runs in the family.  
  
“Hi!” he chirps, in the absolute best imitation of himself he can manage with his soul crawling up into the back of his throat. “So, look, pal...I think we need to talk, don't you?”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
  
Three days.  
  
It takes _three_ _days_ for him to finally catch the other sans at it, and it drives him absolutely crazy in the meantime. It's termites in his marrow, this constant, chewing itch that makes him grind his teeth for fear of just coming right out and saying it before he has any real proof. Of grabbing his doppelgänger by the shirtfront and pinning him in one spot with his fists and his steel-trap magic and demanding, in the gentlest snarl he can possibly manage, _what the fuck do you think you're doing with my brother?_  
  
See and the issue is, Sans knows _exactly_ what his counterpart is doing with his brother. To his brother. Having his brother do to him...?  
  
Ugh.  
  
He doesn't know many of the details—thank god, for that because he and the other sans don't look all that much alike, but still, _still—_ and now that he thinks about it, he actually doesn't have any idea when it started. Maybe it's been three days, maybe longer.  
  
He wants to think Papyrus wouldn't have just straight-up lied to his face, wouldn't he, but he also likes to think Papyrus would have told him if he had a...whatever he and Sans's miserable little twin are to each other. Especially because that's literally never happened before that Sans is aware of, and he's maybe the tiniest bit proud of Pap for it, despite how entirely fucked the circumstances are.  
  
(God, he really doesn't want to picture it. His brain is declining to participate in _that_ particular noble goal, however, and every single night he just kind of stares at Papyrus across the table, chin propped on the heel of one hand, barely managing to keep himself from asking “So, hey, isn't it sorta strange when he's blowing you and you, like—look down though?”  
  
See, because he can't actually stop thinking about his _brother_ and a monster that mostly shares his own face, albeit with a few creative edits, and...okay. Even Sans and Papyrus aren't technically related. They don't share any of the same components, none of the same lineage, none of the genetic material that would actually present a problem even in the impossibly hypothetical where they did reproduce (ew ew ew, he needs _bleach_ for his _brain_ ) but.  
  
Papyrus is still— will always be— his brother in every single conceivable way that actually matters. Because, hey, Gaster had been blood, right? He'd been real family. And look how that had gone.  
  
So it's, yeah, it's weird. Weird doesn't begin to cover it. And he's not really great at leaving well enough alone when it comes to Papyrus, has always been dismal at staying in his own lane, so he just keeps right the hell on thinking about it, even if he doesn't want to. Even if it makes him vaguely nauseous, even if he watches the way the other sans's claws brush lightly, almost shyly, against the hem of Papyrus's hoodie when he joins them at the sink to wash the dishes and feels something sharp and hot and sick catch in his throat.  
  
He coughs, loudly, and is pleased when his twin quickly shoves both hands into the soapy water and puts a few more inches of careful distance between himself and Sans's big brother. “wanna pass me a sponge?” the guy asks with a tentative little smile that Sans doesn't bother returning. He hands him the requested sponge silently and reaches for a rag to dry with, categorically ignoring the way he can see Papyrus's browbone wrinkle out of the corner of his socket.  
  
Maybe Papyrus just doesn't look at him, during?  
  
...somehow that doesn't actually make Sans feel any better. )  
  
In their defense, though, it _was_ almost three in the morning, and, alright, fine. They hadn't actually made any noise loud enough to wake him up.  
  
He'd just been on his way downstairs for water, and they'd been relatively quiet, barely audible beneath the murmur of the poorly-scripted dialogue that accompanied Napstablook's reality shows. Granted, they were possibly quiet mostly because Papyrus had two knuckles shoved between his fangs to bite down on and the other sans's mouth had been otherwise occupied, but still.  
  
It was almost considerate. They clearly thought they were being surreptitious about it. And Sans can reason that perhaps the stale citrusy musk of weed in the air _might_ have been a contributer to the fact that they were worried about noise, but not, apparently, that they were hooking up in the middle of the living room. On the couch. On _his_ couch.  
  
He was relieved to find that he couldn't actually see anything from the top of the stairs as he slid numbly down to crouch on the first step, back turned to the wall. He kept his face carefully averted, because the brief heartbeat glance of them he'd gotten had been more than enough: Papyrus, flat on his back, his enormous frame sprawled across the entire fucking couch so not an _inch_ of it was left untainted, his black jeans shoved nearly down to his knees, way too much femur on flickering display in the blueish corona of the tv screen.  
  
And because this is just not his week, apparently, the other sans had been hunkered, naked as the day he was...what, created? hatched? born? between Pap's skinny legs, cracked skull bobbing arrhythmically in _really goddamn upsetting_ proximity—he assumes because he's horrified, not naive—to his brother's dick.  
  
Sans's cheekbones positively burned a deep, furious blue, only worsening at the messy sounds he catches in between commercial breaks, these slick, wet noises that he will _never ever_ be able to unhear. That was, god, that was _super gross_ , wasn't it, and even that didn't even hold a candle to the low, wrecked groan Pap chased it with, unfortunately only half-muffled into his own hand.  
  
The groan that sounded a whole lot like Sans's own name. The one that he could still hear, could clearly fucking make out despite the fact that he clamped both hands firmly over his ear canals as he shoved himself to his feet and fled, silently as he could manage, for the safety of his own bedroom.  
  
“shut up,” he hears the other sans hiss, way too late.  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
  
“ _shit_ ,” his counterpart murmurs, sockets gone wide, laser-focused on him like a startled cat's. He at least has the sense to step fully into the hallway. He gets his tail clear of the door and tugs it closed behind him, though Sans can see the panicked rise-fall-rise of his chest, the tensing of those hunched shoulders, even from ten feet away.  
  
“Yeah,” Sans hums, and tries for a smile. Judging from the way his doppelgänger cringes, he doesn't think it totally works out. “You wanna talk in here? I'd kinda like to leave Paps out of this for right now, if you don't mind.” He jerks his head towards his own open bedroom door, towards the faint triangle of yellow light his bedside lamp casts on the carpet.  
  
His twin follows the direction with a slow, absent turn of his flushed skull, like it's being pulled along on a string, like he's not totally conscious of what he's doing at all here. He's already nodding vaguely along when he manages to choke out something that sounds upsettingly like “yes, uh—y-yes, sir.”  
  
Sans should correct him.

He _really_ should.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blue tries to wrap his poor brain around honeymustard, drug usage, self-harm, violence, musings on incest??
> 
>  
> 
> everything's real weird basically


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uhhhhh bonding? bonding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boy howdy it sure has been a minute. i'm so sorry.

  
“Sit down,” the other Sans snaps and he just, he hits the ground hard before he has to think about it at all.  
  
He doesn't stop to process, he simply collapses. His knees buckle beneath him like a folding chair as he drops obediently to the carpet with twin muffled _thumps_ of kneecap meeting unforgiving floorboard beneath. He sinks his claws into the plush fibers. Ducks his head. Doesn't so much as whimper, though the impact leaves his knees throbbing.  
  
He _behaves_.  
  
“Oh,” Sans says softly from somewhere behind him and that—god, that's nearly a tone he recognizes, he thinks, feeling a little sick. If it were just a little bit lower, just a _hair_ more hollow, he could almost mistake it for his own Gaster's best efforts at clinical detachment, empty of anything but a mild, horrible curiosity. “I, uh, I meant on the bed, but sure. You do you, boo.”  
  
He hops nimbly up onto the mattress himself. From the corner of his socket, eyelights still cast carefully down, sans notes that his doppelgänger's toes come not at all close to even skimming the floor. He snorts quietly to himself in amusement.  
  
If the other Sans hears him, he ignores it entirely. “I assume you already know what I wanna talk about.”  
  
Which. Of course sans does. sans has been waiting for this particular shoe to drop from the moment Papyrus had leaned heavy into him over Muffet's bartop and asked if he wanted to split the stale joint in his pocket. He's been waiting for something like that spark of anger he'd glimpsed back in Waterfall, the frantic, white-hot fury in his eyelights when he'd slammed sans against that cliffside easy as if he'd been batting away a fly.   
  
He nods slowly. He's honestly been expecting retaliation, been coiled tight and tense all through their brief stay at the Inn and then the bleak few days since they had returned to the house. Something in him unfurls almost, warm and grateful, as the other Sans grits out, “Ohhh, no. I wanna hear you _say_ it.”  
  
_Relieved_ isn't the right word for how he feels. Not quite. There's a heat he doesn't understand, there's a low plaintive sound lodged sharp in the back of his throat like a bone stuck in a soft palate he doesn't even have. And he's not the most self-reflective of creatures, is he, so he doesn't know what any of it means, only that his voice cracks halfway though the sentence when he whispers, “i—i fucked your brother.”  
  
“ _Louder_ ,” the other Sans snarls.   
  
He doesn't even need to lift his head to picture the look on that round little face, sockets narrowed to unfamiliar slits. sans can practically feel those sweet eyelights blown wide with rage boring straight through him. “Say it louder,” he spits when sans hesitates.  
  
“i,” he murmurs, and almost chokes on it. He coughs, scowls, sucks in a ragged breath, steadies himself—   
  
“i _fucked_ your _brother_ ,” he growls through tightly-clenched teeth. He can feel the pitted angles of his cheekbones burning at the admission, a hot prickling of shame on the back of his neck, but hey— it's hardly an unfamiliar feeling by this point. He can handle it. It's _fine._ “that what you want? you happy now, sunshine?”  
  
He regrets it immediately. His voice is far steadier than his hands are, at least, though he's entirely sure the other Sans can see the way he's trembling from his vantage point on the bed, no matter how hard he curls his claws into the carpet. “Oh, fuck you,” the other Sans says, voice flat and cold. “What part of this arrangement do you imagine I'm _happy_ about here, man?”  
  
sans's own shoulders hunch up automatic, spine curling itself into a defensive arch, though he doesn't exactly have real organs to worry about protecting. He feels a tiny bit better half- buried in the dingy fur of his hood for some stupid animal reason anyways, his ear canals muted by the fabric, though he can still hear the wet thud of his own false heartbeat in his skull. It's far too loud, drowning out everything but his doppelgänger's voice.  
  
_That_ comes through crystal goddamn clear, don't it.   
  
“Your Papyrus wasn't enough?” his twin is saying when he tunes back in, a little shrilly. “Had to come after mine, too? You, shit, are you _really_ that desperate not to be alone with yourself?”  
  
“no,” sans protests, nonexistent gut twisting. “no, hey, that ain't—that ain't fair.”  
  
“I watched you blow my brother on my living room couch,” the other Sans replies, faint, like he can't quite believe what he's saying. He laughs. It's not a nice sound. “Look, that nightmare fuel aside...do you have any idea how entirely perfectly I've worn in that couch? It's been—dude, it's been like, a solid decade of breaking that thing in, and now I can't go near it because I watched you, who, by the way, for all the viewers at home who might have forgotten, _looks_ _exactly_ _like_ _me,_ blow my brother on that very couch. Can you see why I'm maybe not super concerned with 'fair' at the moment?”  
  
sans doesn't cringe, exactly, but it's kind of a near miss. He stares down determined at the fading crack spanning his knuckles instead, at the shallow, pale grooves where bone had begun to knit itself back together.  
  
That's about the time he realizes with a vague lurch of nausea, that soon—a few weeks, maybe, faster if they keep inflicting the long, humiliating appointments with Undyne on him—nothing will be left of his brother except those faint grooves. No record of anything, really, except maybe a tendency to stagger around clumsy when drunk. Easily explained away. He could wear short sleeves outside again and not have to endure the lingering, curious eyes of every monster he happened to pass on the street— though they are always careful to be looking elsewhere when he snaps his own gaze up to glare in return.  
  
There would be no real evidence he belongs to anyone at all.   
  
Logically, he knows that doesn't actually matter here. He isn't so dense that he hadn't put it together at least a little bit when he'd woken up one morning to all of his clothes, nearly washed and dried and folded at the foot of the bed, patched where they'd been torn, smelling faintly of some chemical flowery shit. It had all been there, even his phone, _sans_ —hah—his collar, of course, which had apparently vanished into thin air and never been mentioned. He hadn't managed to muster the courage to ask.   
  
That's not a thing here, he'd gathered though, except maybe in the privacy of some monsters' homes, so it doesn't—it isn't a safety thing. It wont protect him from anyone here. He doesn't need it.   
  
He _doesn't_.  
  
He doesn't even realize he's reaching for his own neck until his doppelgänger laughs at him for it though, a low, cruel chuckle that doesn't sound at all right slipping between those perfect goddamn teeth. “Jesus, you're predictable,” the other Sans sighs, and he says it like he's somehow disappointed. “What, Pap can't choke you out on his own? Already bored enough with you to need props a week in?”  
  
And hey, look, there it is again, that sicksharp jolt like a steel-toed boot to his conjured stomach. sans only manages a strangled sound of disagreement, his shoulders hitching up fractionally higher, which is not actually much of a protest at all. “ain't like that,” he mumbles to his knuckles still, before he quite thinks it through. “he won't. too goddamn nice.”  
  
_That_ seems to throw the other Sans for a moment. He's silent for so long that sans actually dares to dart his eyelights up to the bed for half a beat. When he does, he finds his twin watching him, browbone furrowed into a valiant attempt at a frown. “What?”  
  
“what d'you mean, _what_?” sans echoes back at him dumbly, blinking in confusion. “man, have you met your brother? doesn't have it in him.”  
  
Something pained that sans can't quite identify flickers across his twin's face, bright and sudden and vicious as heat lighting. “he...doesn't?” is all he says though, in a tone that doesn't remotely match the expression, voice small now and wavering a little.   
  
“no,” sans says, waspishly. “did you think we were sneaking off to, like...leather bars? he's a _stoner_ , man, he just wants someone to suck his dick and smoke with him afterwards or whatever.”   
  
The other Sans winces at the less-than-delicate phrasing but doesn't otherwise comment. He just looks away, wrinkles his nasal cavity and asks, tentative, like he isn't sure he wants an answer, “Is Pap...like your brother?”  
  
And yeah, okay. _There_ it is. That's the thing that's got him so twisted up over this, that tiny question right there, the idea that their Papyruses are anything alike, which is...fair, maybe, considering. He doesn't imagine his twin even likes the idea that he and sans have anything in common themselves, much less that his beloved brother shares any traits with the larger-than-life caricature of a villain they seem to have made his own Papyrus out to be.   
  
More importantly, he doesn't know how to answer the question. _Is_ Papyrus anything like the one he knows? He's pretty sure the correct response here isn't _well hey, the thing is, we don't exactly talk enough for me to have any idea_ though, so he just shrugs instead.   
  
“nah,” he demurs easily. “like i said. too nice.”  
  
His twin doesn't exactly relax at that but the tension in his jaw eases just a hair, the white fury of his eyelights dimming a little. “Oh,” is all he says, though, kicking awkwardly at what scruff of carpet his small feet can reach. Maybe he can't stop smiling, but it doesn't look quite so forced, suddenly. “Is that, uh...that's...a problem for you?”  
  
Which seems nearly like a trick question, doesn't it, especially with the way his doppelgänger's eyelights lock onto him, laser-focused, the kind of scrutiny that makes him positively squirm. He opens his mouth half on autopilot before he quite realizes he's got nothing to say.  
  
“kinda,” he mutters. Blinks, a little surprised at his own honesty, mostly because he's genuinely never stopped once to think about it. “i'm not...look, i'm not complaining, okay? he's, y'know, he's really, uh. _considerate._ ” He says it like it tastes strange. He supposes it kind of does—bitter, almost. He flicks his tongue studs against his false tooth but there's no comfort to be found even in the familiar clink of steel on gold, no matter how many times he drags them rhythmic against the sharp edge.  
  
“I, wow, I cannot tell you how much I _really_ don't want details about what that means,” the other Sans mutters, his eyelights shrinking to dull pinpricks in horror. “Is that why you're being so goddamn weird about it?” he asks though, fixing his gaze somewhere in the middle distance between them, vaguely avoiding sans's own. “You...dude, do you actually _want_ him to be more like your Papyrus?”  
  
sans doesn't know how to answer that , like, at _all_ , so he doesn't bother, just lifts one shoulder in an apathetic kind of half-shrug. “dunno,” he offers, rubbing absent at the smooth expanse of bone his collar has worn into the line of his neck. It's wide, spanning nearly half the vertebrae and rubbed almost matte, flawless as sea glass. “either way, i figure your Gaster sorta fucked that whole thing waaaay before i got here.”  
  
He realizes dully, fuzzily, like it's coming through on a bad local station, that his twin is staring at him. The other Sans is watching him with his skull cocked to the side a few degrees, brow wrinkled in confusion. “..what's that now?”  
  
That earns him a rough bark of almost-laughter, though sans doesn't find anything about this particularly funny. “well, your Papyrus sober ain't exactly a paragon of self-control.”  
  
“Yeah...” the other Sans allows warily.   
  
“so,” he says, baring his teeth down at his own curled toes in a grim mockery of an actual smile, “weird coping mechanism for someone so paranoid, innit? you ever think maybe he drinks to keep somethin' _in_ rather than keepin' it out?”  
  
He can actually see the moment the implication clicks. He can see the dawning comprehension in the way his twin jerks like he's been struck, jaw going slack and surprised. He can practically watch the little guy's neurons firing as he pieces together that whole awful puzzle, all the jagged bits of his brother that have never really meshed together into any kind of clear picture before this moment.  
  
His dull claws curl into the faded bedsheets in loose, trembling handfuls but his voice is low and very nearly steady when he says, “That's...oh my god, that's why he smokes himself stupid all the time now. _That's_ why he dropped out of the Guard.” He shakes his head. “That's why he won't let me drink with him. He, he think's he's gonna—“  
  
“chip off the old block and all,” sans agrees. “even if you can protect yourself, y'know...one hp. you're _delicate,_ princess.”  
  
“Fuck you very much,” his doppelgänger deadpans, but he seems thoroughly shaken. He refuses to so much as look at sans. “Papyrus wouldn't hurt me. I know that.”  
  
(And see, the thing is? He's entirely right.   
  
The thing is, Papyrus barely bites hard enough to leave a real mark and he never ties sans's wrists together tightly enough to bruise. He never even hisses anything into the back of sans's skull the way his own brother had, hushed and sibilant and reverent as a prayer as his claws rake cruel down the bare expanse of sans's femurs. Until blood wells to the surface, until sans chokes on something that isn't _entirely_ a plea to stop.  
  
When he catches sans stealing a half-empty pack of his cigarettes, Papyrus doesn't casually pin him to the floor with one of those massive paws and proceed to smoke his way diligently through each one, pausing only to crush out every glowing cherry in an deliberate constellation blistered across sans's chest.  
  
When he drinks, he doesn't slur sans's name like it's the most vicious insult he can think of, and he doesn't push sans's face into the pillow until his vision goes spotty and bright with panic. He doesn't cage sans in with his big, stupid body. Doesn't shove up into him impatiently, no fuckin' warning, sans strung tense and unprepared with his blood-colored magic pulsing uncertain, hot, obligingly slick, but only half-formed. Doesn't rut at him like an animal. Doesn't hurt him at all, actually.  
  
It's unnerving, to say the least.)  
  
“does he know that, though?” sans asks gently as he can manage, though he thinks it comes out more gruff than anything. His counterpart refuses to look at him. “daddy wasn't exactly gentle with him, and _you_ don't seem to have helped much. figured i could let him work out some of those anger issues, but...” he trails off and spreads his scuffed hands helplessly. “homeboy doesn't really seem to want my assistance.”  
  
“God, will you shut _up_ ,” his twin hisses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger like he's staving off a nasty headache. “And if you could kindly _never ever_ say the word 'daddy' within earshot of me again that'd be just super, thank you so much.”   
  
sans chuckles, this humorless, paper-dry thing that leaves his throat rough and sort of raw. He desperately wishes he had a drink. “... _you're_ not too nice for me though, are you, cupcake?”  
  
And that, after all the incessant jabs at his doppelgänger's considerable patience, after every shitty thing he's said, every shitty thing he's _done_ , after tongue and teeth and _**this is h i l a r i o u s** _ that stupid, smarmy little quip is somehow the thing that finally does it.   
  
The other Sans snarls wordlessly and kicks out at him, missing only because sans ducks the instant it's out of his mouth. He steps deftly just outside striking range and flashes his twin a brilliant, insolent grin instead as the guy surges to his feet.  
  
He sees the swing coming a mile off but he makes no real attempt to dodge. The kid's pearly knuckles collide with the jagged ridge of his mismatched teeth, _hard,_ snapping his skull back whiplash-quick with the motion.   
  
sans yelps, more in surprise than pain. The blood in his mouth, when he spits, doesn't taste quite like his. He staggers back a few paces and licks something clean, rich and unfamiliar from the keen edge of his false tooth, staring wide-socketed at his doppelgänger, who hasn't so much as dropped his eyelights. The kid is flushed that lovely, ridiculous shade of blue again, tiny fists balled white-knuckled at his side. He's panting, ragged, like a winded horse. His hand is bleeding pretty enthusiastically.  
  
“ain't you sweet,” sans leers, snickering when his doppelgänger wrinkles his nasal cavity in reply.  
  
“You're disgusting,” the little guy snaps. “Don't lick up my _blood_ , what the actual hell.” He holds up his uninjured hand, palm-out, when sans opens his mouth again, and interjects, “And no, I don't want you to lick anything _else_ of mine, before you ask something horrifying. I punched you because you're being awful. That's not an invitation. Also, _ew_.”  
  
sans's grin twists minutely wider. “i'm just sayin', you wanna hit something as hard as you can—well, have at it, Tyler.” When his double only blinks at him blankly, he adds, “Durden? _Fight Club?_ Oh, come on dude, you can't tell me you've never seen _Fight Club.”_  
  
“I've never seen _Fight Club_ ,” the other Sans says, a little primly. “Papyrus kept telling me to read the book first—”  
  
“ _nerd,_ ” sans interrupts.  
  
“— and I never really got around to it, so.” He folds his arms over his chest. “Look, whatever, my film choices aside—what are you trying to suggest, exactly?”  
  
“i have a proposal,” sans says with a shrug that he dearly hopes is something approaching casual. “just hear me out.”  
  
Incredibly, his counterpart shuts his mouth for once and _does._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did you know I [ draw stuff](http://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com/tagged/cash-scribbles) ? come talk to me about gross skels please thank


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus gets it.
> 
> (spoiler: Papyrus does not get it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys...i know this fandom is dying but i'm determined to finish this fuckin' thing. 
> 
> end notes now include links to other stories in this verse
> 
> please come yell at me on [my](http://vstheworld.tumblr.com/) [tumbls](https://morelikeskelesinstwopointoh.tumblr.com/)

Papyrus doesn't know what he was expecting, really.  
  
He isn't, like. He hasn't _thought_ about it, not in any real detail. He doesn't daydream about wedding dresses and mortgages and a litter of screaming babybones or whatthefuckever. He doesn't give a shit about holding hands or going out to fancy restaurants and if he winds up snuggling with anyone, it's usually his unfortunate brother trapped beneath his drunken bulk.  
  
((Sans is pretty decent at evading him sober and probably could escape him even at his gin-soaked worst, but he seems to secretly relish being used as an oversized teddy bear.  
  
He never says as much, of course, but he always quirks that permagrin a few degrees wider on the right side when Papyrus does it, a crooked, fond expression he seems to reserve exclusively for his elder brother's more exasperating moments.  
  
Papyrus is careful to never think of that smile as _his._ ))  
  
And it's not like this was even a thing for him, really, because it's been what, a solid decade now since he'd accepted that maybe all the flowery bullshit in those cartoons Undyne adores is just...not for guys like him.  
  
It's easy enough to remind himself he's relieved at the thought. Remind himself of the way he kind of squirms inside, twisted up in secondhand embarrassment any time he happens to flick across a love scene on one of NTTV's handful of channels. He never manages more than a few moments of dragging eye contact and swelling, cheesy violin music before he switches to something interesting, usually involving explosions.  
  
It makes him itch in the weirdest way, the thought of waking up next to someone on a regular basis, of overlapping pillows and tangled limbs and the weight of a whole other _person_ sharing a space with him. He can't quite wrap his imagination around the kind of monster that would take one look at him with his shirt off—ribcage a mess of old fractures, ulnae roadmapped all over with faint silvery _entirely humiliating_ scratches that have yet to totally fade even a decade and a half in—and decide _that_ was something remotely worth sticking around for.  
  
He can't imagine actually sitting down and explaining it to another monster. How the fuck is he supposed to bring that up? Just what, tack it on the end of another conversation? Thanks for dinner and oh yeah, by the way he should probably mention he just wakes up screaming sometimes but it's no big, really, just probably don't wake him up in the middle of a nightmare. Or after a nightmare. Or ever, maybe, because being asleep is far preferable to being awake. And if that wasn't enough, the icing on the goddamn cake—keeping any backstock of alcohol in the house is absolutely a thing of the past! Hope that works out for you.  
  
_Right_.  
  
Shit, he isn't even sure _he'd_ have any respect for the kind of monster that would accept those terms. In that sense, it nearly wins his brother's doppelgänger a grudging few points in his favor.  
  
It's totally okay that he maintains a strict distance from Papyrus inside the house. It's okay that he still won't look Papyrus fully in the face. It's okay that they don't address it.  
  
It's better this way.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
This new sans—and god, does he wish he'd stuck the guy with a nickname now, because okay, first off, _ew_ —has kind of a Thing for public places, it turns out. It's honestly sort of a surprise he has a Thing at all, considering, but by this point, Papyrus really knows better than to ask him about it.  
  
Because the new sans answers honestly, doesn't he, and even on a good day, even on a day he almost makes eye contact and doesn't immediately freeze up every time Papyrus so much as coughs within a fifteen-foot radius, well.  
  
The shit that comes out of the kid's mouth is _horrifying_.  
  
(Papyrus had said as much once, half-joking, as he rolled them a postcoital joint on the lid of the closed toilet's tank. He'd laughed and sans hadn't made a single noise, until Papyrus actually looked over his shoulder to meet his faint eyelights.  
  
“you can gag me if you want,” he'd offered with a shrug, easy, in the exact same gruff monotone Papyrus had heard him use to order his drinks. And then he had just waited patiently, head tipped a few degrees to the side, like there was any possible coherent response Papyrus could have managed past the sudden swell of nausea in the back of his throat.  
  
“No thanks,” Papyrus had croaked finally, trying for a smile. He was pretty sure it didn't work. “I, uh, I kinda like knowing your thoughts on the whole thing, y'know?”  
  
sans had blinked at that, once, twice, slow, like maybe it was taking him a moment to actually register the words. The face he'd made when he did, this furrowed, wary thing, might have counted for a frown on a more expressive monster. “...why?”  
  
“Don't ask me that question,” Papyrus had husked, sticking the end of the joint between his teeth and lighting it just to have something to do with his stupid, shaking hands. It didn't occupy them for nearly long enough. He'd scowled down at his traitorous lighter. “Jesus _christ_ , man.”  
  
sans never offered again.)  
  
See, Papyrus has exactly zero experience in this area. Hell, he's never actually even been on a date, much less lived with someone he was seeing. He's not familiar with this, doesn't know the rules, like, _at all,_ but he's still fairly sure it's weird that the guy will only ever touch him when they're outside the confines of his house.  
  
Because that's just...logical, right? Just practical. It would be easier in the relative privacy of Papyrus's bedroom. More comfortable, for sure, not to mention that an actual bed would be a new and thrilling addition to their...whatever it is they're doing here.  
  
(( _“relationship...? y-you think what he d-does to me is a r-relationship? you n-naive sonuvabitch. y-you h-have **n** **o**     **f** **u** **c** **k** **i** **n** **g**     **i** **d** **e** **a**.”))_  
  
Papyrus is a little bit hurt by it, if he's being honest.  
  
Not that he'd ever say anything. Jesus, no—because maybe some days are sweatpants days and some days are skirt days but that doesn't mean he's _actually_ an enormous teenage girl. That doesn't mean he has any interest in all at discussing these sharp pangs of the weird, indefineable thing in his chest, especially not with his brother's bitter little double. Not with his brother. Not with Undyne. Not at _all_ , thanks.  
  
At least the other sans seems to be on roughly the same page in that regard. He doesn't make any real effort to strike up conversation when they're alone together, at least not beyond the inevitable “you, uh, you wanna...?” which is always accompanied by this totally, _entirely_ unsubtle jerk of his head, a goddamn blinking neon sign of a gesture towards the bathroom of whatever dive they'd decided to drink in that particular night.  
  
Like Papyrus had any illusions about where this was going. Like he needed a reminder.  
  
He almost thinks it's a passive-aggressive move, at first. Thinks maybe the new sans feels a little bit better, a little more at ease as long as he's the one technically holding the cards. Maybe it might help him delineate between Papyrus and, well... _Papyrus,_ considering he kind of doubts the guy's brother ever bothered to ask for sans's input.  
  
So he waits sans out. He's patient. He lets the kid come to him, every single time.  
  
He tries his best not to notice that sans drinks more and more beforehand.  
  
Every single time.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Papyrus wouldn't call himself oblivious, necessarily, but the truth is he's kind of an idiot. As a direct result of being an idiot, he doesn't clock that something is horrifyingly wrong here until the very first time he tries to go down on sans.  
  
And it's...okay. It's not something he's good at. It's not something he's practiced at. It's not something he's really even attempted before, aside from that one awkward time with Undyne, but. He's trying, which seems like it should garner him _some_ kind of points for effort. He's pretty sure, though, that even his fumbling inexperience shouldn't produce this kind of reaction.  
  
Because the guy's always been kinda twitchy, right, always been strung tight and nervous any time Papyrus so much as hints at entering his personal space, but he's also always been worryingly amicable once the clothes started coming off. It's...a little unsettling, actually, this smooth slide into that persona, so easy Papyrus barely notices it at first.  
  
Seems like it's conscious, too, right? It would have to be. The change happens the instant Papyrus actually agrees to that particular round of awkward dive-bar hookup.  
  
...like sans is just waiting for his permission.  
  
He thinks he can maybe be forgiven, though, for falling so completely for the kid's act. For not realizing it sooner. He doesn't even _know_ the guy, and it's not like Papyrus's own brother gives him much of a basis to work off of.  
  
After all, he's the polar opposite of Sans in every way that matters.  
  
  
Right?  
  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
  
  
It eventually happens like this:  
  
Papyrus is dozing, half-asleep in the uncomfortable wooden chair of his guardpost—what else is new— when he blinks and abruptly realizes that there is someone walking towards him. There is someone unmistakably headed exactly in his direction, stalking determined through the faint grey haze of snow. Someone small and hunched and very, very child-sized.  
  
Someone coming not from the Ruins like he'd expect, but from the direction of Snowdin instead.  
  
The stomach he doesn't have plummets somewhere to around the region of his femurs.  
  
His eyes snap fully open, molten orange magic flickering to life in his left socket as he lurches to his feet and—  
  
—and promptly slams both knees against the underside of the station countertop, hard. He stumbles, barely managing to catch himself before he loses his footing entirely and hisses, “ _cocksucker_!” hopefully quietly enough not to be heard over the faint banshee wailing of the wind.  
  
And look, he really is only vaguely awake. All his animal instincts switch into overdrive, a sudden spike of panic surging through him at the sight of—no, it can't be the kid, it's way too early for the kid, the kid has never shown up like this before what the fuck is he supposed to do with two Sanses _and_ a homicidal toddler and oh fuck they're coming from the _opposite_ _direction_ , does that mean they've already been through Snowdin, does that mean Sans is dead already, would that mean _both Sanses are dead already —_  
  
The point is, he's not really thinking when he manages muzzily, voice still slurring and thick with exhaustion, “Fuckin'— hey, you, _halt_!”  
  
The figure, still far enough to be reduced to a shadowy outline in the evening dim, stops. Cocks its head to one side, birdlike.  
  
And promptly dissolves into howling laughter.  
  
“you—oh my god, are you _serious_? you goddamn—did you actually _hear_ what just came outta your mouth?” The figure doubles over in mirth at that, clutching at where his stomach should be, laughing that stupid hyena laugh. Considering Papyrus knows very well he doesn't have actual organs under there, he thinks it's probably mocking, entirely for his benefit. sans keeps right on cackling for a while though, his voice echoing tinny and too loud in the relative quiet of the clearing, small shoulders shaking helplessly. He even goes so far as to wipe a stray tear from his eye socket as he snickers, “ ' _hey, you, halt_?' really? shit, stretch, even your _threats_ are pathetic.”  
  
“Fuck off,” Papyrus growls, rubbing at one still-throbbing kneecap. sans's shit-eating grin ticks minutely wider at that, and Papyrus can practically _hear_ the gears in that busted little skull whirring. “No,” he says firmly before sans can manage to think of any more awful jokes at the expense of the English language. “Whatever you're about to say, _no_.”  
  
sans chuckles. “calm your tits, boss. that one's too easy, even for me.”  
  
Papyrus glares at him for it anyways, because he's pretty sure that still counts as wordplay, but sans only leers back, eye sockets half-lidded lazily. “too. easy.” he repeats. And then in a rare show of actual goddamn personality, he holds out one hand, and snaps his fingers expectantly. “c'mon, what kinda host are you? i need a smoke,” he says, when Papyrus only raises a brow at him.  
  
Bemused, Papyrus fishes the pack from his hoodie pocket and hands them over. When sans gives them back, he takes one for himself and leans back in his chair, patting the makeshift countertop of the guard station with one hand. “Jump up, maybe I'll give you a light, too.”  
  
sans eyes the thing suspiciously, as though he doesn't totally trust that it will hold him. He obeys anyways and hops onto it with surprisingly little effort considering his bad leg. He settles himself cross-legged, misshapen feet tucked beneath him and tail curled over his lap protectively. He leans forward, though, with the cigarette clenched between his teeth instead of reaching for the lighter. “you spoil me,” he mutters around it.  
  
It's a strange, submissive move, even for him. Papyrus is also pretty sure it's not normal, the way sans seems totally content to allow another monster to hold fire not an inch from his face, but he doesn't so much as flinch when Papyrus clicks the lighter. He actually closes his eyes, and only inhales a deep lungful when it finally catches and begins to burn.  
  
Papyrus lights his own cigarette. “I sort of doubt you walked all the way out here just to steal my smokes,” he observes finally. “Besides, I thought you found the pack in my sock drawer.”  
  
In answer, smoke trailing absently from his nasal cavity and the gaps between his teeth, the other sans fishes a crumpled, near-empty pack from his coat pocket. He shakes it and distantly, Papyrus can hear the distinct rattle of the last cigarette in the box. “precious that you thought they'd last this long,” he says, and takes another long drag. “you even smoke like a pussy, huh?”  
  
“Oh, fuck you,” Papyrus says with no real venom at all.

It's still the wrong thing to say, evidently, because his brother's doppelgänger goes stiff and still. He doesn't even bother with the cigarette still clamped between his claws, which has burned down nearly to the filter now.

  
“yeah?” he asks quietly. If Papyrus wasn't looking directly at the guy, it would have almost sounded calm.  
  
Papyrus blinks. “Dude,” he says, “I'm at _work_.”  
  
sans makes this bleak little sound in the back of his conjured throat, one that might have passed for the stillborn sibling of an actual laugh. “what,” he drawls, “you guys are seriously _that_ fuckin' boring that the concept blows your mind?” He tsks, mocking, and though the words are even, his posture hasn't relaxed in the slightest. His entire tiny body is snarled up defensive, pulled tight as a badly-tuned guitar string. He snickers. “i mean hey, don't get me wrong, it looks like you got an _awful_ lot going on—”  
  
“What do you want,” Papyrus interrupts, before the guy can spiral any further off-course. He leans back in his chair, props his sneakers against the edge of the counter, and shoves both hands into his pockets. This particular posture is the absolutely epitome of bored indifference, especially when he tips his skull back just so. Which he should know.  
  
He's certainly practiced it enough.  
  
“Seriously,” he continues. “I don't get off for like another two hours, so if you're looking for dinner you're gonna have to track down Sans."  
  
“i,” the other sans says, pressing a hand to his own chest, offended, “am capable of feeding myself, fuck you very much.”  
  
Papyrus snorts. Considering they'd found the guy bleeding out in a pile of day-old leftovers, he's not entirely sure he wants to press for details. “Okay, so again, _why are you here_.”  
  
sans shrugs, though the movement looks a whole lot more like a twitch than he probably means it to. “thought you might be able to use a little company,” he says, eyelights skittering evasive off to some indeterminate point to his left. “seems real boring, stuck all the way out here alone.”  
  
He doesn't actually say it, doesn't make any awful jokes about "entertainment." Doesn't move, seems like, except for the two claws worrying nervously at his jacket zipper.  
  
He's pulling it mechanically up and down maybe half an inch, quickly and with enough frequency to produce an astonishingly grating sound. Papyrus is sure it's a tic, probably something he doesn't even realize he's doing, and for some reason that's the thing that does it.  
  
Before he quite gives it the command, Papyrus arm reaches forward to curl long fingerbones around the offending wrist and squeeze. Predictably, sans stills.  
  
“I wanna try something,” he hears himself say, distantly, sort of like it's on a television playing in another room.  
  
“okay,” sans says immediately. He asks no questions, which is not reassuring in the slightest.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
The super weird part is, though, sans doesn't protest.  
  
Not that he really ever does, granted, but he doesn't so much as hesitate when Papyrus pushes him towards the single chair in the tiny shack. Drops obedient into it and blinks those blurry eyelights up at Papyrus, actually, lifting his hips when Papyrus nudges at them.  
  
He has to take sans's borrowed sweatpants off entirely to do it, and he receives absolutely no argument in return, just a slight wrinkling of the nasal cavity when they drop onto the bare, dirty snow. That seems, as far as Papyrus can tell, like pretty blatant permission.  
  
sans lets Papyrus push his knees apart, too, lets him try to shove his broad shoulders somewhat comfortably between them. He even rests his feet on the tops of Papyrus's still-clothed femurs, ragged claws twitching erratic with nerves as Papyrus slides his hands around the backs of sans's knees and lifts his tailbone off the chair, tilts his pelvis slightly for easier access. Papyrus actually lowers his goddamn _head_ between san's scarred thighbones and still, he says nothing at all.  
  
And then he continues to say nothing, right up until Papyrus actually does it. Up until he first noses into the warm, faint-buzzing pink magic of sans's cunt, tongue slipping slick between those swollen lips to sweep up and over the bright nub of his clit, anyways, and then sans freezes up like the damn thing is a pause button instead.  
  
It's only for a moment, just long enough for sans to seemingly realize Papyrus has followed suit, eyelights flicking down to his to catch and hold. Which is actually kinda alarming in and of itself, when he stops to think about it.  
  
sans breaks the eye contact first, of course, and he whines low in his throat, desperate. He grabs at Papyrus's skull with both hands, claws-first like he's not thinking about his alarming proximity to Papyrus's vulnerable eyelights in the slightest. He grabs and he _squeezes_ , this convulsive twitch of his fingerbones, hard, before it seems to actually register with him what Papyrus is doing.  
  
He doesn't really taste like anything distinct—just this cloying, musky kind of prickle on Papyrus's conjured tongue, an almost carbonated buzz to his pink magic that seems to flicker in time with sans's pulsing eyelights. It's not entirely unpleasant, really, except that it's coupled with the sound of sans gritting those mangled teeth and hissing, “nonononono, _don't— “_  
  
That's startling enough that Papyrus actually jerks back, letting go entirely. Cracks his skull against the underside of the guardpost counter pretty hard for his trouble, too, because he is _way_ the fuck too tall to crouch comfortably down here for long.  
  
He rubs dazedly at the spot and stares blank, maybe a little slack-jawed at his brother's doppelgänger. He's _never_ heard that word out of the kid's mouth, nothing even close, and for a frantic moment Papyrus thinks he might have hurt him, might have nicked something sensitive. He doesn't have a mouthful of filed-down knockoff shark teeth, granted, but his canines are still pretty sharp and he's not exactly the most coordinated monster in the Underground—  
  
Papyrus fights to keep his expression neutral, his sockets half-lidded and sleepy as he lets his eyelights drift up to his not-brother's face. Which is sort of tilted down towards him, maybe, eyelights vanished into black nothing, smile gone slack and uncertain. He's...not looking at anything. He's not breathing. His claws twitch once more on the back of Papyrus's skull before he flinches and pulls back, drawing both hands awkwardly against his chest like he's not sure quite what to do with them.  
  
Papyrus is, like, ninety percent sure there is no actual physical way for a skeleton to go paler than their individual shade of bone, but he'd swear the other sans has managed it somehow. Maybe it's just that his cheekbones are flushed a darker red than normal, just a function of increased contrast. Maybe it's because this is the first time he's really bothered to look at the guy in whatever passes for daylight down here. “what are you doing,” sans says in what he probably thinks is a neutral tone, but comes out so dull and flat that it hardly even sounds real.  
  
Papyrus frowns. That isn't at all what he'd been expecting. “I...do you really not know?” he asks, bewildered, glancing down at the pink mound of sans's cunt, and then back to his face in confusion. “You go down on me all the time, dude.”  
  
“don't be stupid,” his brother's twin growls. “i know what giving head is, asshole. i meant— “ and here he looks away, hunching his shoulders up a bit, defensive. Works his jaw a little before he manages to speak, like it's physically impossible to spit it out otherwise.  
  
“you—you _stopped_ ,” he mutters finally, his cheekbones going a rich shade of crimson Papyrus has never seen on him before, snarled little shoulders drawing up even further. “when i asked,” he clarifies when he receives no response, like he thinks the silence is a result of confusion rather than horrified shock.  
  
He looks as though he'd like to sink into the snow floor of the guardpost. He looks sick. He looks humiliated. He looks, worst of all, like he really, genuinely _does not understand._  
  
And what the fuck is Papyrus supposed to do with _that_.  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for just everything, all of it, all the time the end
> 
>  
> 
> uhhhh so Pap's feminine presentation thing is glossed over and explored in more detail [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10330286) and [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7467258)
> 
> the companion story now featuring sad edgelord pap in self-destruct mode is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6232009)
> 
> sad times with bb!Blue is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10193984)
> 
> [These](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7932700) [ones](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7648450) are just porn


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sans copes, definitely

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy it...sure has been a minute. I am so, so sorry!
> 
> the good news is, this is just the first bit of a large chunk of ACTUAL PLOT that is coming, and the next part should be up in the next week or so. 
> 
> This is actually the first half of what was turning out to be a just painfully massive chapter, so it's not as plotty as i was aiming for, but we're getting there. Specifically, getting to the end of little blue pills, and the continuation into the rest of the verse!
> 
> Thank you to every one of you who has been kind enough to leave me feedback. I don't know how to tell you how much it means to me because, ironically, i am really bad with words.

For six days afterwards, Papyrus avoids him.  
  
He isn't mean about it, and...well, maybe “avoid” is a strong word, considering that he, Papyrus and the other Sans wind up spending most of those six evenings parked on the couch with beer and bad reality TV until Papyrus inevitably drifts off, slumped up and snoring against the armrest.  
  
It's not a terribly large house, so their occasional collisions are inevitable, but it still doesn't escape sans's notice that every time, Papyrus is quick to put as much distance as possible between them. Like he's afraid sans has something that might be catching.  
  
He doesn't let himself follow that train of thought to the station, but. The assessment isn't entirely unfair.  
  
(After It Happened—because sans really seriously does not know how else to qualify that moment, the way Papyrus's entire face had gone slack and pale (???) with horror, his fingerbones clutching desperate at sans's kneecap as he husked out, voice cracking on every other word, _did_ _you_ , _hoooooly_ _shit_ , what _the fuck did you just say?—_ or the way Papyrus had stood, shakily, staring blank down at him for so long that sans had kind of started squirming under the gaze, uncomfortably aware of his own half-nudity.  
  
He was trembling like a fucking leaf mostly because he couldn't identify that expression on Papyrus's unfamiliar face, like, at _all._ Papyrus apparently assumed it was the cold, and shook himself out of his daze long enough to snag sans's sweatpants from the ground. He brushed off the ice, and held them out with this rueful little grin that still didn't sit quite right, but was at least a considerable step up from the empty nothing of only moment before. “Hey, you've gotta be freezing,” he said, gentle as could be, and made a vague kind of motion with the hand still clutching snow-damp cotton. “You, uh, you want some help?”  
  
sans didn't answer, obviously—couldn't, past whatever had crawled up into the back of his throat to die—but he lifted his hips when instructed, and even let Papyrus tug his shirt back down into place. Didn't protest when the guy helped him up and held his jacket out for him, motioning for sans to turn around so that Papyrus could help him into it one arm at a time. Like he was a waiter at one of those ridiculous human restaurants sans has seen in their old movies, like he's some black-and-white old-timey heartthrob, like...  
  
Like sans is someone Papyrus is trying to _date_.  
  
Oh.  
  
Oh, _fuck_.)  
  
Papyrus still talks to sans happily enough. He doesn't actually _say_ anything, mind, just this near-constant stream of dumb quips about whatever mindless garbage they've all settled on for that night, punctuated with the occasional pointed comment about how godawful Napstaton's music is— _yes, all of it, Sans, I thought i raised you better than that_ —but it's all oddly, jarringly polite. He's careful to keep Sans between them on the couch, to pick the chair furthest opposite him at the dinner table. He keeps his distance.  
  
sans doesn't understand it _at_ _all_.  
  
And it doesn't—look, it doesn't make him nervous, exactly. It doesn't really make him itch all along the surface of his bones.  
  
That one actually might just be the withdrawal, come to think of it, especially since Sans had cut his dose in half the day before.  
  
(“I mean, you're obviously healthy enough for extracurriculars with my brother preeeeetty dang often,” he'd offered sweetly when sans had protested. The little fucker had practically beamed at him. “Means you've _gotta_ be feeling a little bit better, right?”  
  
sans didn't bother to correct him.)  
  
He hadn't said anything at all about it. Hadn't so much as hinted as to why they'd gone from drinking themselves blind in the few bars that still allowed them inside to....just, to _nothing_. Chill detachment, barely looking at each other and sans makes himself positively sick with how much he finds himself thinking about Papyrus's stupid-warm bulk, about his big, clumsy hands, about anything at all that might fucking _ground_ him, because he's spent the last six days feeling as though he's somehow existing half an inch outside the actual space his body occupies.  
  
He feels...unreal almost, offset and strange, like he's commanding his entire being with a glitching controller. His limbs are slow to obey his orders, his usually-shaky fingers spasming occasionally, enough that he's started pinning his beer bottles between his knees for safekeeping instead of trying to hold onto them. Generally, he empties them quickly enough that it isn't a problem.  
  
It's....look, it's not _fine_. He's been trying to convince himself that he can do this a second time around, but the ugly reality of it is that like a junkie that just got his fix after weeks drying out, he absolutely _aches_ for even a hint of those semi-unsatisfying collisions he's had with this Papyrus. Even if he isn't so perfectly, casually cruel, even if he never really _says_ anything during, even if sans never spends hours afterwards shrouded in the blissfully clouded numbness his own Papyrus had been so excellent at wringing out of him, well.  
  
It's still _Papyrus_. He even smells nearly the same under the ever-present reek of tobacco, earthy and always a little bit sweaty, like he's just finished a workout, though he's never so much as seen this Papyrus attempt a brisk walk. It's enough that sometimes sans could close his sockets, could bury his face in Papyrus's cervical vertebrae and nearly talk himself into believing that it was his own brother's thick fingers shoved up inside him— though the fact that Papyrus always insisted on working that broad thumb against his clit at the same time kind of ruined the whole fantasy.  
  
He could never figure out any way to mention that without sounding _totally_ crazed, so. He kept his mouth shut unless instructed otherwise.  
  
He isn't good for much, maybe, but he's had _that_ one down for years.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Sans is, in some regards, exactly what he'd expected, once he lays down the conditions of their arrangement.  
  
He brought _notes_ , for god's sake, little blue index cards covered in neat bullet points, and sans finds himself distantly surprised that he's never asked to actually sign, like, a nondisclosure agreement or something. He just nods along while his twin talks, noting with faint amusement the bright blue flush that creeps over those round cheekbones when the kid says, “A-and I want to be _super_ _clear_ on this point because boy howdy, do you have boundary issues: I'm not having sex with you. Period. That's a non-negotiable.”  
  
Which. That doesn't sting, exactly, though sans does furrow his brow a little in confusion. “okay,” he says, though with an easy shrug. That's a simple enough demand. sans is exceptionally talented at inaction. “whatever you say, boss.”  
  
Sans wrinkles his nasal cavity up at the nickname, as predicted. “Noooope,” he says. “I know better than to take vague answers from you, pal. I need you to say it.”  
  
“you don't want to have sex with me,” sans deadpans.  
  
“In any capacity.”  
  
“in any capacity,” sans echoes obediently, still flat.  
  
“And that's not—that's not, like, some kind of insane code that you're supposed to be finding loopholes in, okay? Zero hidden layers. Zip. Zilch.”  
  
“...am i still supposed to be repeating this?”  
  
Sans blinks, permanent grin stretching just a little bit wider. “There you are,” he says softly, instead of anything that remotely makes sense. “I forget you have a sense of humor under all that crazy sometimes, dude.”  
  
There's nothing to say to that, of course, so sans huffs out a laugh and doesn't answer. He picks absent at a loose thread on the worn blanket instead, a yellow one from the very faded center of an embroidered flower. It comes apart under his jagged claw, the fibers parting easily, like it's just been waiting for an excuse.  
  
He stops laughing.  
  
“Aaaaanyways,” Sans continues after a moment of awkward silence stretched tenuous between them, “the only other thing was—and I kind of know I'm gonna regret even asking this—did Papyrus ever give you a safeword?”  
  
sans does actually look up at that, head cocked to one side curiously. “a what?”  
  
Sans's grin tightens into something brittle and pained. “Yeah, that's sorta what I was afraid of.”  
  
Which isn't actually an explanation at all, but he doesn't seem like he's much inclined to offer more. Instead, he drops to his haunches in front of sans so they're somewhat on eye level, though he's careful not to touch. He's _always_ careful not to touch. “Did—did Papyrus ever actually _ask_ you? Either one,” he clarifies, though his bright eyelights flick away when he says it, like he maybe doesn't want the answer to that last question. Like he's afraid he already knows the answer.  
  
“no,” sans rasps in a voice so small, he doesn't even register that he's spoken aloud for a second. “b-but Papyrus—your Papyrus—he didn't, he wasn't— “  
  
Sans has watched him struggle with his words enough to simply wait patiently for him to scowl, clear his nonexistent throat, and attempt again. “your Papyrus,” he offers eventually. “he wasn't. i mean, he didn't _h-have_ to ask. i—i always started it.”  
  
His twin doesn't look relieved, exactly, but he does nod slowly, like he's trying to process the information. He pushes himself to his feet, still looking a little dazed, and reclaims his seat on the edge of the bed. He buries his toes in the thick carpet.  
  
“That's...good,” he grits out, though it also sounds like he might have conjured a tongue solely to bite into. “That he...yeah. That's good.”  
  
And then he just stops, frozen, much like Papyrus had out in the guard shack, only sans is staring into the middle distance between them. His brow is furrowed, his eyelights fuzzing out a little bit. He's quiet for a long time.  
  
Eventually, sans's legs go kind of numb past the knee where they've been folded neatly beneath him but he doesn't move. He hasn't been asked to stand, though he doesn't think his doppelgänger realizes that's what he's waiting for, to be totally fair. He can't feel his tail, which is a bit alarming, and he's pretty sure he's going to stumble like an idiot once he finally does struggle to his feet, but he doesn't so much as squirm.  
  
Distantly, he's almost a little proud.  
  
“Your safeword,” Sans says, _finally_ , and his head snaps up like a soldier to attention, “is 'red.' Like—that's beginner-level shit. That's something you should know about. You're gonna, you'll use them like stoplights. Green for go, yellow for back the fuck off, red for back the fuck off _now_.”  
  
“that's stupid,” sans grumbles, and to his considerable surprise, his twin chuckles.  
  
“That's fine,” he says with a shrug. “You don't need to like it, you just need to do it. And I've kinda got this working theory that you've been, I dunno, _waiting_ for someone to tell you what to do? So.” He folds his arms over his chest, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “What'll it be, sans? Make a call. Tell me your safeword or don't, but that's a non-negotiable too.”  
  
“red,” sans is saying before he thinks about it, before his twin's totally finished his sentence, before he even registers that he's opened his mouth at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red is a big ol bucket of crazy, Papyrus handles nothing well, and Blue is an a+ quality baby dom, referenced past Bad Times for Red


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> blue plays therapy and red loses it a little

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see?? told you it would only be a few days.
> 
> but for real, uh, all the warnings for this. underage, heads up. dubcon/noncon all day. 
> 
> i'm sorry that i'm not sorry 
> 
> EDIT: hey y'all just a warning that i been getting some feedback that people are having to skip bits of this, so I am now properly sorry and also please keep yourself safe

“Tell me what happened,” Sans says.  
  
When he flinches, his doppelgänger reminds him only a little coldly, “Your safeword is 'red,' sans. Repeat that for me, please?”  
  
“my safeword is 'red,'” he mutters, numb, and is rewarded with one small, warm hand skimming gently along the crest of his cheekbone.  
  
“Good. You can use it. Do you want to?”  
  
sans shakes his skull before he even realizes he's told it to move. “n-no.”  
  
“Thank you for telling me,” his twin says, apropos of fucking nothing, sounding oddly pleased. “Now, sans. _I want you to tell me what happened._ ”  
  
So. What else can he do, really?  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
[before]  
[[the party it's that goddamn party it's always the party always always A L W A Y S]]  
  
  
  
  
It takes him a second to register that Papyrus is actually speaking to him, even in the relative quiet of the empty bedroom.  
  
sans thinks he can probably mostly blame that on the high-pitched ringing that's filled his skull, because his entire thought process sort of kicks neatly offline the instant one of Pap's hands shoves its way under his shirt. Skips to a stop like a broken fuckin' record when those broad fingerbones fold around a delicate floating rib and Papyrus just squeezes and squeezes and _squeezes_ until it creaks in protest between his claws.  
  
He could snap it like a twig with barely any effort at all, sans realizes a little hysterically. He knows this precisely because Gaster _had_. He doubts he'll ever forget how it sounded, wet-wood cracking of bone, the twisting agony of the pressure beforehand as a part of him was wrenched in a direction it was never meant to go.  
  
He remembers that Gaster had laughed softly, even if he doesn't remember why he'd done it in the first place. Anyways, that hardly matters now. All the nightmares start to bleed together before long. He doesn't see much point in bothering to pick out the details.  
  
“Shhhhh,” Papyrus mumbles thickly into his collarbone, following with a warning scrape of newly-filed teeth.  
  
sans shivers.  
  
He lets go of the rib and lets his claws drag heavy down the curve of them instead, skimming over the sensitive underside of sans's spine. His thumbnail presses into the soft cartilage between two lumbar vertebrae, the ones sitting just above his pelvis, and sans lets out a noise like he's been stabbed.  
  
“What'd I say?” Papyrus slurs, and promptly does it again.  
  
sans whines this time, pressing himself back into the mattress as though it offers him any real escape. “Pap,” he tries, and Papyrus promptly bites him on the collarbone for it, hard.  
  
He digs his teeth in, a dog with a fresh cut of steak, bites deep enough that sans cries out and positively writhes under him, trying to scramble out from beneath Papyrus's relative bulk. Papyrus holds on, snarling into the grip, his hot breath huffing into the sweaty curve of sans's throat, and sans's dick promptly picks a _really_ bad time to join the proceedings.  
  
Struggling gets him nothing but a second bite overlapping the first, though this one is nearly gentle in comparison. Papyrus mouths at it, kind of, sloppily, and sans reminds himself that the kid is _smashed_ , that he probably doesn't even know what he's doing.  
  
That is, of course, the moment his little brother's hand curls around his cock, and sans promptly chokes on his own breath.  
  
See, the fucked-up thing is, he's entirely convinced that Papyrus actually genuinely thinks he's doing sans a favor here.  
  
And he kind of gets it. He really does. He understands that Papyrus's studies have been badly neglected and his socialization even worse, but the kid still learned _some_ habits from his father. Really, Gaster might have been a little proud of the fact that, judging by the way he palms at sans, the confident curl of his hand, Papyrus had clearly done his research here. sans can't really focus on anything except how weirdly massive Papyrus's bruised hands look prying his femurs apart, though, like they belong to a total stranger, miles divorced from the memory of the tiny ones that had fit so neatly into his own years and years and years ago.  
  
“don't,” he tries to say, as Papyrus lifts his hips and peels his sweatpants off one-handed, but it comes out garbled and utterly incoherent.  
  
Jesus fuck, what had been in that drink?  
  
“Papyrus,” he says as the final cuff slips over his foot and he's bare-assed naked on some random teenager's bed with his brother crouched between his legs, breathing hot and heavy over his pubic bone like something straight out of a cheesy softcore. “b-buddy, what're you—? “  
  
“She punched me,” Papyrus says immediately, like sans had commented on the weather instead. “I tried to kiss her, and she punched me. D'you wanna know why?” He ducks his head down to nuzzle at the inside of sans's right thighbone, a rough noise of contentment slipping out when sans sucks in a breath at the contact.  
  
sans really, really incredibly fucking doesn't. He doesn't want to know a single thing except how long it'll take his baby brother to snap out of _this_ particular episode of crazy.  
  
Papyrus takes his cry as encouragement anyways, though, and lets his eyelights drift up lazy up to sans's, his mouth twisting half into something too cold to rightly be called a smile. “Oh, come on. You wanted to talk a minute ago, didn't you?”  
  
“not like this,” sans husks, dry, trembling more than he'd care to admit. “a-and it'd be just awesome if you got your f-f-fuckin', your _hands_ off me, Pap, you're drunk— “  
  
“God knows _you_ got no room to talk— “  
  
“—you asshole, are you _seriously_ trying to have this conversation right now—?!”  
  
“Shut up!” Papyrus snarls, slamming one hand down hard over sans’s teeth. “Just, just— _shut_ _up_. You're apparently _excellent_ at it, shouldn't be too hard.”  
  
sans blinks. “uh. what?” he mumbles through the bracket of his brother's fingers.  
  
Papyrus ignores him, opting instead to wrap his free hand around sans's dick again. His grip is maybe a _little_ tight, though sans kind of hitches helplessly up into the rough touch regardless as Papyrus slowly, _slooowly_ drags his foreskin away from the flushed pink head of his cock.  
  
“Cute,” Papyrus says, staring at his own fingerbones, fascinated, as they stroke along sans's magic, his eye sockets crinkling in mirth at the guttural sound it pulls from between sans's teeth. “You like that,” he says, and it's light. Nonaccusatory. More of a observation than anything.  
  
_No_ , sans tries to say and _not_ _with_ _you_ but instead his stupid mouth grinds out, “feels good,” like that's at all an acceptable position to take here. Like it matters at all that this is the first touch that hasn't really hurt him, that's _not_ _relevant_ _data_ , that's—  
  
_you raised him,_ sans reminds himself sharply. _you went to his plays and you patched up his knees when he feell off his bike and you finished his homework when he couldn't stay awake to do it himself, and you've given him everything you have already, so._  
  
_why is this different?_  
  
That doesn't make a whole lot of sense either, though, so he settles for kind of pushing gently at Papyrus's skull with both hands. Tries one more time, “Pap, please— “  
  
Papyrus actually does let go at that, pulls away to sit back on his knees, and for a moment a cold wave of relief crashes over him. Papyrus neatly dashes _that_ hope to pieces, of course, when he just strips his ragged black tank top off and begins to unwind his scarf from around his scarred neck.  
  
They've never talked about those, either. sans isn't totally sure he's allowed to look at them even with Papyrus half-naked, so he drags his eyelights up to his brother's face instead. He carefully avoids the deep notches decorating collarbone and sternum, though he notes with dismay a handful of marks he's never seen before on Papyrus's non-dominant shoulder.  
  
Papyrus unbuckles his belt. Or he tries to, anyways, despite the fact that motor functions don't seem to be his strong suit at the moment.  
  
“I, I _studied_ ,” he practically giggles as he fumbles with his buckle. “I don't—I don't get _any_ of it, but I tried.”  
  
sans has no idea what he's talking about but he nods anyways. “s-sure, Pap.”  
  
Papyrus manages to slip the leather free from his belt loops at last, and folds the thing in half. For one wild moment he's sure Papyrus is about to strike him with it, but he only sets it aside on top of his scarf.  
  
“Porn is _awful_ ,” Papyrus blurts out of seemingly nowhere, his sharp cheekbones coloring with a crimson flush. “I don't think I learned a thing from it. But I _tried_.”  
  
Oh. _Oh_.  
  
“for Undyne,” sans says. It's not a question.  
  
Papyrus nods and flicks open the top button of his jeans. It...doesn't really seem like there's much room for any, uh, _equipment_ in those tight garments, but Papyrus's pelvic crests are already flooded with a deep orange-red light anyways. He doesn't look at sans, exactly.  
  
“She's gay,” he says, flat. “So. There's that.”  
  
There's nothing sans can say to that, really, and Papyrus doesn't seem to expect a contribution. He doesn't even give sans a chance to respond before he's shimmying his jeans down his skinny hips and kicking them off somewhere into the indeterminate mess covering their host's floor.  
  
He crawls onto the mattress like he's been practicing that too,  
nudging one femur harsh into the rust-pink magic coalescing between sans's legs. He slides one of those big paws down sans's ribcage when he does it, claws raking over the narrow bones like a knife over the bars of a xylophone. sans groans before he manages to stop himself.  
  
“Good,” Papyrus growls. “I wanna—I wanna _hear_ you, sans.”  
  
That's...an unusual request. Usually Papyrus's tolerance for him is directly proportional to his silence, and these kinds of sounds—animal, strangled, _pathetic—_ are his absolute least favorite. Usually, they make his brother sneer in disgust, they make him look down the proud, straight line of his nasal cavity at sans like he's something unpleasant stuck to the sole of Papyrus's boot.  
  
It's commonplace enough that just the thought of it kicks something hot and shameful low into sans's gut, which is all kinds of fucked up, probably.  
  
But, he thinks a little hysterically, eyelights locked on Papyrus's own, there's exactly nothing about this that falls outside that category, so maybe he needs to focus on his weird guilt complex when he actually has time to worry about anything beyond the immediate panic of Papyrus's big hands settling on his pelvis, thick fingers curling around the scarred arcs of his hips. sans squirms, which only makes Papyrus tighten his grip, though he's strangely careful with his claws. It doesn't hurt.  
  
sans doesn't know what to do with that.  
  
Tentatively, softly, sans lets out another groan and Papyrus's eyelights immediately swell with arousal in response, a smile barely tugging at the corner of his mouth. “ _Yeah_ ,“ he nearly purrs in approval, one big hand pushing its way between sans's femurs again.  
  
_Okay_ , sans notes, dizzy. _Okay, that's—positive response from that one. Check_. He should, he should remember that, he should be filing that away for later, he should—  
  
Only he can't really focus on anything at all, really, while Papyrus is jacking him off like that, languid, honey- sweet, rolls of his wrist and _holy_ _shit_ is he good at that.  
  
Good enough that it actually makes sans wonder for this pointless, blind second how often Papyrus has done it to himself in their shared room. How often he's done it possibly while sans is curled up asleep on the foot of his bed, even.  
  
((Wonders how often he's done it while sans was in his father's bedroom instead.  
  
Wonders how often he's done it and thought about That Night in the basement, because sans had maybe been strung out on a mercifully-efficient cocktail of painkillers when it happened but Papyrus had been stone cold sober. Papyrus had been _twelve years old_ and his eyelights had guttered out in absolute stark panic as Gaster had situated him between sans's legs, taken iron hold of his shaking, skinny wrist, hauled him closer to sans's overheated bones and—  
  
Maybe Papyrus didn't think about it. He'd cried, during. Hadn't made a sound of course, forever playing the brave little soldier even at that age, but fat pink tears rolled down his cheekbones and he'd sounded like he was drowning, choking on his own sobs when he gasped out _Dad, no, I don't wanna—_  
  
If sans had been at all able to speak through the gag of Gaster's spare finger-bones, he could have told the kid to spare them both the pleading. Could have told him it wouldn't matter, that Gaster may as well have been on a different planet entirely for all that he seemed to notice begging, or protesting or any words at all, really, unless they got to a distracting volume. Which Papyrus was approaching, fast.  
  
Papyrus was still young, but he grew like a puppy, limbs-first, so his hands at twelve were't really _much_ smaller than they'd be at twenty-five. Later, sans forgave himself for the undignified little whimper he let out when two of those thick fingers shoved unceremoniously into the dusky red flesh of his cunt, the angle unwieldy, considering Gaster was still guiding his son's hand in a clumsy vise grip.  
  
Papyrus shuddered at the sound, the sticky-damp squelch of false flesh. sans could feel it all the way down to the marrow of his pelvis, the way it made the kid's hand spasm in panic. His sharp little kitten claws curled jerkily into sans's magic way too deep for a heartbeat, just barely enough to hurt.  
  
“You have to put some effort into it,” Gaster snapped, waspishly, when Papyrus remained motionless, skull tipped down to stare at where his fingers vanished into sans's body. He didn't move. He might not actually have been breathing, his gaze fixed firmly on his own fingers like they might have done something unexpected, like the hand belonged to someone else entirely. “This is not conducive to a successful end result, Papyrus,” Gaster offered a terse moment later, his shape positively rippling with irritation. “There's no need to take your time with this.”  
  
sans cringed. There was a flint edge to Gaster's voice now that he recognized too well, just this trace hint of meanness waiting to spark into a howling inferno at any given opportunity, and he hoped fervently that Papyrus was aware of the thin line he was walking. Hoped Papyrus had the good sense to square his narrow shoulders and obey because really, if this was all his father insisted on, well.  
  
It could have been so much worse.  
  
He couldn't say shit with the bones between his teeth, of course, so instead he hitched himself up into the touch a little, let his femurs fall just a little further apart in encouragement, though the joints already felt stretched way past their limits. Papyrus blinked, brow wrinkling, and sans thought he might have been trying to make eye contact, if his eyelights had still been cooperating with him.  
  
“go on,” he tried to say, though it slurred out muzzy and thick past his chemical—and literal—gag. Gaster chuckled, though sans didn't think there was a chance at all that he understood.  
  
“See?” Gaster said, one of his original hands coming up to cup the back of Papyrus's skull gently, thumb rubbing fond at an old crack across the kid's occipital crest. “He likes it.”  
  
Papyrus just made a gutted noise of protest and tried, in spite of every clear signal sans was desperately trying to hand him, to wrench away from his father again.  
  
“How can you possibly—he doesn't! He _clearly_ doesn't!” Papyrus spat, rage making his voice shrill. “He _hates_ it, he's shaking, he's _scared of you—”_  
  
Gaster's smile dropped like the power had been cut. His claws made a sound like steel nails on glass when they bit into the curves of Papyrus's skull. Papyrus flinched, because he didn't know enough not to.  
  
Gaster said nothing in response, though he also didn't attempt to return Papyrus's still-slick fingers to their previous post. He let go of the kid's wrist entirely, actually, the hand formerly occupied with that hold drifting lazily up to frame Papyrus's sharp jawbone between thumb and forefingers.  
  
Almost tenderly, he tipped Papyrus's empty gaze up towards his. “You remind me so much of your mother,” he said softly, which didn't actually make sense here at all.  
  
And then he shoved his son's skull, face-first, right into the dull flush of sans's magic. Shoved until Papyrus's nasal cavity was pushed right up against sans's swollen clit, until his blunt upper teeth nudged between sans's lips, the aborted sound of protest Papyrus tried not to  
make vibrating pleasantly into his pelvis. And he just, the asshole just _held_ Papyrus there, pinned down, his narrow little ribcage nearly flush to the steel table, one hand locked around the back of his skull, another around what would have been the nape of the kid's neck if he'd had one.  
  
“Stick your tongue out,” Gaster snarled. Papyrus screwed his eye sockets shut and, for possibly the first time in his short life, obeyed without question. His entire ribcage rattled alarmingly as he fought to pull air into his starving body while sans ground helplessly against him. Papyrus gave a low, wounded sort of moan in response, breath coming fast and panicky even as his tongue pushed wet-warm and insistent into sans, just as he'd been instructed.  
  
“Might as well do _something_ useful with that mouth of yours,” Gaster had deadpanned, smirking faintly, and then, to sans, “What are you waiting for? Get yourself off. I don't have all night to waste with you two.”  
  
Gaster had never incited any real reaction in his battered body aside from a dull, thick kind of nausea, the heavy exhaustion of his own resignation, grudging obedience. The way Papyrus's surprisingly-deft tongue licked into him was, by comparison, even as the dread curled familiar up sans's spine...well, it was really, unfairly fucking good, actually. It was saliva-slick and messy and _hot a_ nd sans was good at following orders too, so it wasn't exactly a hardship to roll his hips down against Papyrus's face until he could feel those sharp, familiar twinges of false nerve feedback.  
  
It wasn't the most upsetting scenario he'd been told to get off to, even. The sick gnawing skittering over his bones certainly wasn't the _worst_ he'd ever felt, so sans figured that he probably didn't have any real reason to feel particularly nauseated with himself as he shuddered and came against Papyrus's teeth.  
  
Still.  
  
He barely made a sound at all when it happened, just a sharp buck of his pelvis, phantom muscles clenching up around the kid's tongue as sans rode out the aftershocks and tried his level best to murmur “I'm sorry, I'm _sorry,”_ around the fingers pinning his own tongue in place.  
  
If Papyrus heard him, he gave no indication of it. If Papyrus was even in the room with him still, actually, he gave no indication, just that mile-deep, black-hole stare, like maybe he was looking right through sans.  
  
He got to his feet when Gaster told him to, though, and he didn't stumble once as he followed sans up the stairs, so he had to be at least partially aware of his surroundings. He was even careful to keep pace with sans's own considerably-shorter legs, almost as though he wasn't terribly eager to be left alone, even now.  
  
“Papyrus,” sans tried, once they were back in the kitchen and the basement door closed behind them. “Pap, i— “  
  
“Please don't,” Papyrus said immediately, his voice small, trembling. “I— _please_. Don't.” He turned away, cheekbones red, shoulders hunched and offered no further explanation, just pulled off his t-shirt— damp at the collar, sans noticed with some mild embarrassment, with the same pinkish color still smeared all over Papyrus's teeth—and dropped it to the tile. He didn't even look at it before he fled the room.  
  
The front door slammed shut so hard sans could feel his teeth rattle and still he just stood there, dumb, staring at the pitiful heap of crumpled cloth until the glow of his magic had long faded away into filthy, frustrating stains.  
  
He wound up throwing the shirt away. He never could get the damn things out.))  
  
  
sans jerks abruptly back to himself when that same tongue coils itself around the head of his cock and pulls him into the sharp, slick heat of Papyrus's mouth with no warning, past razor teeth and the cautionary scrape of canines. Papyrus's magic is welcoming and warm, wet to the touch, and sans is only aware he's even reaching for his brother when he actually pushes one dirty claw in right alongside his dick.  
  
He has absolutely no idea why he does it.  
  
Papyrus glares at him and wrinkles his nasal cavity, but he doesn't react otherwise, which is sort of a surprise. He's kind of neat freak normally, always insisting sans do these ridiculous things like washing his hands and actually using _soap_ on the dishes, like germs were somehow at all a thing sans—or any monster in their right mind, back home— had the bandwidth to be concerned about.  
  
Papyrus doesn't even say anything when sans slips the the second finger in. Doesn't argue, doesn't do much of anything except let his conjured throat go slack and easy, lets sans fuck up into his mouth for a precious handful of moments. The hot electric buzz of his brother's magic feels like it's _everywhere_ , like he's covered in it, like he might drown in it, overwhelming in the best kind of way, like sans has just knocked back a long line of shots and his body hasn't quite decided just how sloppy drunk it is yet.  
  
It leaves sans kind of wrung out, panting, free hand gripping a desparate fistful of their host's probably-dirty sheets between shaking claws. He's so fucked, he's so far gone he can't even find it in himself to be angry when Papyrus pulls back to lick at his teeth and leer, sockets half-lidded, though his eyelights still blown wide and wild. His bones are hot to the touch. He's smiling like he just won a goddamn marathon. At _sans_.  
  
That can't be right.  
  
“what did you take?” sans croaks and his brother laughs, low, pushing himself up on hands and knees to crawl over him. He moves fluid as a big cat somehow, unfairly coordinated despite his inebriation. “Papyrus, _what did you take?”_  
  
Papyrus doesn't answer.  
  
It's entirely ridiculous how much bigger he is, by comparison. Even sprawled out like he is, the very tip of sans's tail barely reaches past Papyrus's knees. He can wrap one hand around sans's entire neck if he wants to with plenty of overlap, though at the moment he seems much more intent at situating himself with a knee on either side of sans's femurs. He braces himself with one hand on sans's ribcage— sans tries not to notice that it spans the length of half his sternum, easy—and before sans can manage to string together any kind of inquiry as to what the fuck Papyrus thinks he's doing, exactly, he sits himself right down on sans's cock.  
  
And...look, to be fair, he probably should have actually been paying attention to Papyrus once he'd shucked his clothes off. sans had been so intent on studying his face, though, trying to figure out what had happened here, where this sudden shift had come from, that he hadn't actually realized until that moment that Papyrus's blood-orange magic has formed a neat little cunt rather than anything remotely close to what he'd been expecting.  
  
He doesn't know what he'd been expecting, maybe. He hasn't actually given this any thought before, because hey, he's not a _total_ waste of magic, but if pressed he'd probably have pegged Papyrus for the hyper-masculine type.  
  
He'd have guessed at a decently-sized dick, definitely bigger than sans's, and the overbearing hair-trigger aggression to go with it, but apparently nothing at all is making any sense tonight. Papyrus offers nothing by way of explanation, doesn't _ask_ , just sinks himself down onto sans with a pained little cry. He winces, hisses like it _hurts_ , which it has to, doesn't it, because he's too tense, he's way too tight and sans isn't exactly small. Papyrus is a little dry (nerves, sans assumes) and he apparently didn't bother to bring lube, which means it's almost too much, even for sans. If he was capable of it, if Papyrus was a monster with actual organic flesh, he'd have _torn_ , he'd be _bleeding_ —  
  
But he's not, and he doesn't, just grinds his hips down slow and dirty. He kind of sits there once sans has bottomed out though, femurs splayed, eyelights flickering like cheap neon, trying his best to suck in even breaths as he's got both hands curled into shaking fists, braced against sans's ribcage.  
  
“you don't have to,” sans starts, except Papyrus either doesn't hear him or doesn't want to. He begins to focus instead on working himself into some kind of rhythm on sans's dick, arms shaking, his entire face furrowed in concentration.  
  
sans kind of wants to tell him, absurdly, like it remotely fucking matters here, that he doesn't need to try so hard. He's tight enough and sans inexperienced enough that despite the sweat prickling on Papyrus's browbone, despite the way he winces every time he sinks back down, it... doesn't feel awful, exactly.  
  
It's stuttering, though, awkward as anything. And eventually sans has the horrible realization that this, drunk as hell and rolling on god only knew what, is absolutely, one hundred percent Papyrus's first time.  
  
Worse than that, sans amends. He'd actually planned it to be, it was supposed to be this...this stupid teen romcom setup because Papyrus is a giant goddamn sap, so of _course_ it would be the night of their graduation party. Of course it would be when they're both a little tipsy, maybe the last real happy memory they'd have together before the military kicked them into their final warped adult shape.  
  
Moreover, it was supposed to be Undyne, not sans. It was supposed to be his best friend here, the girl of his twisted, terrifying little dreams, not...not his _dog_.  
  
“i-i don't want to,” sans starts, and Papyrus makes this broken noise in his chest, squeezing his eye sockets closed.  
  
“Don't say that to me,” he breathes through barely parted fangs. It sounds like it hurts. “Don't you _dare_ say that to me.”  
  
So sans doesn't. Instead, he tries sliding his hands up Papyrus's femurs though they're shaking badly enough to rattle loudly against Papyrus's comparably denser bone. Tries smoothing them down his legs again like he might stroke the flanks of a spooked horse, and says, “i don't— i don't want you to hurt yourself.”  
  
“Yeah?” Papyrus snarls. “Well that's too bad, isn't it.” He snaps his pelvis down hard, and bites back the instinctive cry it wrenches from the back of his throat, sockets narrowed into furious slits as he swallows it down. “You're so goddamn lazy, sans. Give me something to work with here.”  
  
“what?” sans grinds out. “oh fuck, Pap, _ow_ , at least—jesus, at least use spit or something! _”_  
  
Papyrus's scowl deepens but he complies, kind of. He leans back and lets sans slip out of him halfway, anyways, before he spits directly onto sans's cock and promptly rocks right back down onto it again.  
  
It definitely helps, though Papyrus is still almost painfully tight. sans has to bite back another moan, has to slam his skull back into the sheets in order to stifle the argument that tries to rip itself out of his mouth. Papyrus doesn't want to hear it and he doesn't really have the brainpower to put it together coherently in the first place, so.  
  
He kind of just grits his teeth and scrunches his eye sockets shut and lets Papyrus ride him until the kid tenses up like he's been electrocuted, clenches around him and comes hard with an ugly, wounded little sound.  
  
sans lets his sockets crack open at that just barely, just enough to see the stricken expression on Papyrus's face. For half a beat, sans has a clear view of the orange tears welling in Papyrus's empty sockets before he shields them with one hand and twists his head away. A moment later, his voice rasps, low but steady: “...do you want me to...?”  
  
“no, thank you,” sans sing-songs a bit dazedly to the ceiling and Papyrus lets out a surprised snort of laughter. He very nearly forgets himself entirely and smiles, though it melts into a sort of pained hiss as he lifts himself gingerly off of sans's cock.  
  
He doesn't say anything, and sans has so many questions, he can't possibly figure out where to start. _What the fuck_ is primary among them, closely followed by _why me, of all monsters why would you pick me,_ but his focus sort of catches on the way Papyrus's shirt pulls when he tugs it back over those broad shoulders, so he doesn't actually manage to say a thing.  
  
Still, Papyrus collapses onto the mattress mext to him once he's dressed again. He curls close and rests his forehead gently against sans's shoulder before he falls asleep, even, which is maybe all the answer he knows how to give.  
  
And hey, who knows. Maybe it's all the answer sans actually needs.  
  
  


* * *

Very much to his credit, the other Sans manages to sit through the entire story without saying a word— though as soon as he's sure sans has finished, he stands up, says “Excuse me,” very politely, and immediately runs to the hall bathroom to throw up what sounds like everything he's eaten that day. He doesn't return for a long time.  
  
sans tries not to take it personally.  
  
He really does.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does anyone feel sorry for pap now? no? okay cool fair enough
> 
> oh boy let's see--well, y'all wanted basement and awkward first time, there ya go! papyrus is reeeeal fucked up and it is absolutely Gaster's fault

**Author's Note:**

> violence, partial dismemberment, unhealthy relationship, abusive relationship, ptsd, panic attacks, sans doesn't know how to person

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] little blue pills to help me sleep (don't like my life so I take seven when i drink)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7506859) by [GoLBPodfics (digiella)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digiella/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)




End file.
